Technological advancements in the creation, manipulation and detection of quantum states of light have motivated the application of such states to overcome classical limits in sensing and imaging. In particular, there has been a surge of recent interest in super-resolution imaging based on principles of quantum optics. However, the application of such schemes for practical imaging of biological samples is demanding in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, speed of acquisition and robustness with respect to sample labeling. Here, we re-introduce the concept of quantum image scanning microscopy (Q-ISM), a super-resolution method that enhances the classical image scanning microscopy (ISM) method by measuring photon correlations. Q-ISM was already utilized to achieve super-resolved images of a biological sample labeled with fluorescent nanoscrystals whose contrast is based entirely on a quantum optical phenomenon, photon antibunching. We present here an experimental demonstration of the method and discuss with further details its prospects for application in life science microscopy.

Date Published: 1 March 2019
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10934, Optical, Opto-Atomic, and Entanglement-Enhanced Precision Metrology, 109341P (1 March 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2514459

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10934:
Optical, Opto-Atomic, and Entanglement-Enhanced Precision Metrology
Selim M. Shahriar; Jacob Scheuer, Editor(s)