Quantum Holographic Microscopy

Abstract

Quantitative phase microscopy (QPM) techniques are widely investigated for imaging transparent specimens, such as cells and tissues. The sensitivity and resolution of conventionally used QPM are fundamentally limited by environmental noise. Recently, quantum phase microscopy has been proposed. The research on it has made some progress and has shown many advantages over the classical one, such as greater robustness and higher contrast. However, the phase resolution of existing quantum phase microscopies remains very low, often confined to the qualitative measurement level. Here, to resolve these practical limitations, we introduced polarization entanglement-enabled quantum holographic technology into the microscopy system and constructed a new type of quantum phase microscopy, namely quantum holographic microscopy. By improving the existing quantum holographic scheme, our microscope system can be used to measure both various non-biological phase samples and label-free biological samples. The experimental results show that the phase resolution is improved by an order of magnitude compared with that of existing quantum phase microscopes. Moreover, the system has good robustness and can still obtain clear images in the presence of strong classical noise. The newly constructed quantum microscopic system is expected to have broad applications in industrial production, medicine, biological research, and other fields.