General Lab Information

quantum microscope artist rendering

Understanding Biological Samples Through Ghost Imaging

Seeing is believing, as the adage goes, and thus, scientists use microscopes, telescopes, and other imaging systems to advance our understanding of the world around us. Especially in the realm of biology, the development of more precise imaging systems, including x-ray imaging, has opened the pathway to modern medicine, treatments, bioengineering, and other advances. However, to measure biological samples with high accuracy, scientists need to take images at high resolution and with high signal-to-noise ratio. This, typically, means long exposure times, which – when using x-rays – harms the sample through radiation damage, which changes the sample. Therefore, a team of researchers is working on a new type of quantum enhanced microscope that uses “ghost imaging” to retrieve a high-resolution image of the sample without long exposure times. This microscope relies on the quantum nature of light by using entangled x-rays beams produced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) for imaging.

Meet the Team and Join the Collaboration

The team behind the quantum enhanced microscope brings together expertise from various fields.

Cinzia Da Via is a Physics Professor at Stony Brook University with expertise in radiation detection and imaging systems. She is responsible for the identification and studies of novel non-linear media needed to generate entangled x-rays.

Andrei Nomerotski is an expert in photon detection from Brookhaven Lab’s Physics Department. He is responsible for the fast imaging of x-rays and optical photons with nanosecond scale resolution.

Lonny Berman is a physicist at NSLS-II with expertise in x-ray optics and related instrumentation and has participated in x-ray diffraction and photoemission experimental programs. He advises the quantum enhanced microscope project on x-ray optics.

The team is eager to work with other groups to explore these methods. If you are interested, please email qemicroscope@bnl.gov.

Project Funding

The project is supported through DOE-BER, Bioimaging Science program, within Biological Systems Science Division BSSD's Biomolecular Characterization and Imaging Science portfolio. For more information on this program see the Bioimaging Science website.