Interaction-free, single-pixel quantum imaging with undetected photons

A typical imaging scenario requires three basic ingredients: (1) a light source that emits light, which in turn interacts and scatters off the object of interest; (2) detection of the light being scattered from the object and (3) a detector with spatial resolution. These indispensable ingredients in typical imaging scenarios may limit their applicability in the imaging of biological or other sensitive specimens due to unavailable photon-starved detection capabilities and inevitable damage induced by interaction. Here, we propose and experimentally realize a quantum imaging protocol that alleviates all three requirements. By embedding a single-photon Michelson interferometer into a nonlinear interferometer based on induced coherence and harnessing single-pixel imaging technique, we demonstrate interaction-free, single-pixel quantum imaging of a structured object with undetected photons. Thereby, we push the capability of quantum imaging to the extreme point in which no interaction is required between object and photons and the detection requirement is greatly reduced. Our work paves the path for applications in characterizing delicate samples with single-pixel imaging at silicon-detectable wavelengths.

Yiquan Yang, Hong Liang, Xiaze Xu, Lijian Zhang, Shining Zhu, Xiao-song Ma