Holographic imaging just got a quantum upgrade.<\/p>\n
Engineers at Brown University, including two undergraduate students, have developed a groundbreaking imaging technique that uses quantum entanglement to produce detailed 3D holograms without relying on traditional infrared cameras.<\/p>\n
By pairing invisible infrared light to illuminate microscopic objects with visible light entangled at the quantum level, the novel technique captures not just intensity, but also the phase of light waves\u2014an essential ingredient for true holographic imaging.<\/p>\n
The result is sharp, depth-rich 3D images created using light that never actually touched the object.<\/p>\n
Spooky science meets precision<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIt sounds impossible, but they did it,\u201d said Professor Jimmy Xu, a professor in Brown\u2019s School of Engineering and one of the supervising researchers, in a press release.<\/a><\/p>\n Dubbed Quantum Multi-Wavelength Holography, the technique overcomes longstanding challenges like phase wrapping, using dual entangled wavelengths to dramatically expand depth range.<\/p>\n \u201cThe technique allows us to gather\u00a0better and more accurate information on the thickness of the object, which enables us to create accurate 3D images using indirect photons,\u201d said Moe (Yameng) Zhang, a junior concentrating in engineering physics at Brown who co-led the work with fellow undergraduate Wenyu Liu.<\/p>\n Zhang and Liu presented their work earlier this month at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics. Along with Xu, the work was supervised by Petr Moroshkin, a senior research associate.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could call this infrared imaging without an infrared camera,\u201d Xu said. \u201cIt sounds impossible, but they did it. And they did it in a way that enables great depth resolution in the images it produces.\u201d<\/p>\n Traditional imaging methods, like X-rays or regular photographs, work by capturing light that bounces off an object. Quantum imaging, on the other hand, relies on the strange but powerful phenomenon of quantum entanglement\u2014what Einstein once called \u201cspooky action at a distance.\u201d<\/p>\n When two photons are entangled, a change in one instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are.<\/p>\n In this technique, one photon\u2014called the \u201cidler\u201d\u2014interacts with the object, while its entangled partner\u2014the \u201csignal\u201d photon\u2014is used to actually form the image.<\/p>\n Crystal clarity, quantum depth<\/p>\n In the Brown team\u2019s new approach, they used a special crystal to generate pairs of photons: infrared photons to scan the object and visible-light photons to create the image. This setup offers a big advantage: Infrared light is ideal for probing delicate or hidden structures, while visible light allows imaging using standard, affordable detectors.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cInfrared wavelengths are preferred for biological imaging because they can penetrate skin and are safe for delicate structures, but they require expensive infrared detectors for imaging,\u201d said Liu.<\/p>\n \u201cThe advantage of our approach is that we can use infrared for probing an object, but the light we use for detection is in visible range. So we can use standard, inexpensive silicon detectors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The major breakthrough in this work is bringing quantum imaging into the 3D world by solving a common problem called \u201cphase wrapping.\u201d This issue comes up in imaging methods that rely on the phase of light waves\u2014their peaks and valleys\u2014to measure the depth of an object. When the features on an object are deeper than the light\u2019s wavelength, the wave pattern can repeat, making it hard to tell apart shallow features from deeper ones.<\/p>\n To navigate this, the Brown team used two sets of entangled photons with slightly different wavelengths. This small difference creates a much longer \u201csynthetic\u201d wavelength, allowing the system to accurately measure much deeper contours and produce more reliable 3D images.<\/p>\n \u201cBy using two slightly different wavelengths, we effectively create a much longer synthetic wavelength \u2014 about 25 times longer than the originals,\u201d Liu said.\u00a0\u201cThat gives us a much larger measurable range that\u2019s more applicable to cells and other biological materials.\u201d<\/p>\n A \u2018B\u2019 for breakthrough<\/p>\n The team successfully created a\u00a0holographic<\/a>\u00a03D image of a tiny metal letter \u2018B\u2019 about 1.5 millimeters wide to demonstrate the technique\u00a0in a nod to Brown University. They say it\u2019s a strong proof-of-concept that shows the potential of quantum <\/a>entanglement for generating high-quality 3D images<\/a>. Both Liu and Zhang said they were excited to share their work at an international scientific conference.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had been reading papers by pioneers in this field, so it was great to be able to attend the conference and meet some of them in person,\u201d Zhang said. \u201cIt\u2019s really an amazing opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n The research was funded by the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Holographic imaging just got a quantum upgrade. Engineers at Brown University, including two undergraduate students, have developed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[61948,61949,60711,61950,18154,60714,74,11111,61951,70,61952,16,15,61953],"class_list":{"0":"post-143497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-3d-holography","9":"tag-biological-imaging","10":"tag-brown-university","11":"tag-entangled-photons","12":"tag-infrared-light","13":"tag-phase-wrapping","14":"tag-physics","15":"tag-quantum-entanglement","16":"tag-quantum-imaging","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-synthetic-wavelength","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-visible-light"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114595556457227179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}