Quantum Entanglement: Exploiting the Quantum Nature of Light Permits Super-Resolution Imaging

shrod cat"Schrödinger’s cat" is an example of quantum- mechanical superposition and of “quantum entanglement.”

Entanglement is a real thing that will be critical in areas from imaging to information technology.  We are exploiting entangled photons.  Two are highlighted below.

observation doc

An important demonstration of entangled photons generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) was provided by Burnham and Weinberg, Physical Review Letters 25, 84 (1970)​

 

Two potential applications for the use of entangled photons for imaging are biomass and ionic liquids.

ARabidopsis thaliana
Arabidopsis thaliana, the prototypical biomass system and the first plant material we shall investigate with entangled photons.
Model of Arabidopsis
Model of Arabidopsis primary cell wall. The amount of cellulose microfibrils shown is less than in a real cell wall. XG: xyloglucan; GAX:   glucuronoarabinoxylan; HG: homoga-lacturonan; RGI and RGII: rhamnogalacturonan I and II, respectively.  Image from Somerville et al.

 

Imaging nanodomains in ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents.

Spectroscopic experiments will be coupled with computations based on machine learning.

Model proposed
The model proposed to describe an arbitrary type of separation between one phase, α, and another “phase,” β, the latter of which is comprised of nanodomains labelled 1, 2,…n.  The use of quotation marks to describe the nature of β recognizes that, depending on their sizes and durations, each nanodomain is, in principle, a phase.