Two-photon imaging assisted by a dynamic random medium

Abstract

Random scattering is usually viewed as a serious nuisance in optical imaging, and needs to be prevented in the conventional imaging scheme based on single-photon interference. Here we proposed a two-photon imaging scheme with the widely used lens replaced by a dynamic random medium. In contrast to destroying imaging process, the dynamic random medium in our scheme works as a crucial imaging element to bring constructive interference, and allows us to image an object from light field scattered by this dynamic random medium. On the one hand, our imaging scheme with incoherent two-photon illumination enables us to achieve super-resolution imaging with the resolution reaching Heisenberg limit. On the other hand, with coherent two-photon illumination, the image of a pure-phase object can be obtained in our imaging scheme. These results show new possibilities to overcome bottleneck of widely used single-photon imaging by developing imaging method based on multi-photon interference.