Subwavelength quantum imaging with noisy detectors

Abstract

It has been recently shown that an interferometric measurement may allow for subwavelength resolution of incoherent light. Whereas this holds for noiseless detectors, one could expect that the resolution is in practice limited by the signal-to-noise ratio. Here I present a qualitative assessment of the ultimate resolution limits that can be achieved using noisy detectors. My analysis indeed indicates that the signal-to-noise ratio represents a fundamental limit to quantum imaging, and the reduced resolution scales with the square root of the signal-to-noise ratio. For example, a signal-to-ratio of $20\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{dB}$ is needed to resolve one order of magnitude below the wavelength.

Topics & Concepts