UK researchers use “spooky” quantum mechanics to create low-light photos

Researchers from the University’s Optics Group used a technique known as quantum ghost imaging to create an image of a wasp wing using just 50,000 particles of light.

The process  - which is described in a paper published in Nature Communications - works using quantum ghost imaging, which harnesses what Einstein called the ‘spooky action at a distance’ property of quantum entanglement, where photons are paired so that any measurement of one instantaneously gives knowledge of the state of the other, no matter the space between them.

The project - which was supported by EPSRC funding - is the latest in a series of quantum imaging breakthroughs at Glasgow University, which was recently announced by the UK government as the lead in a £29m Quantum Imaging Hub.

Developed in collaboration with researchers in Ottawa, Canada the system works by sending ultraviolet light from a laser to a non-linear crystal similar to a piece of quartz. The crystal splits every incident ultraviolet photon into two infrared photons, which exit the crystal on separate trajectories in a state of quantum entanglement.