JRG/2: Mid-Infrared Quantum Imaging and Spectroscopy

The central goal of the research plan is pioneering and establishing mid-infrared quantum spectroscopy and quantum spectral-imaging based on induced quantum coherence. Quantum enhanced sensing is a vividly developing branch of quantum optics that starts touching on practical, real-world applications. First conceived from fundamental insights on the classical limits of sensing and imaging and how to overcome them with quantum states of light it enables for example to bypass Abbes famous optical resolution limit and to reduce fundamental noise from the quantisation of light (shot-noise) leveraging quantum resources like entanglement and non-classical photon statistics. Mid-IR light between wavelengths of 2-20 um has tremendous scientific and technological relevance because it covers the most intense and distinct vibrational molecular absorption bands, e.g. of important gas molecules or stretching modes of specific chemical groups in biological tissues. This makes it excellently suited for molecular spectroscopy and spectral imaging leading to a wide range of uses in chemical or bio-medical research and diagnostics.