{"id":3215,"date":"2021-02-21T18:00:02","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T18:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1339832"},"modified":"2021-02-21T18:00:02","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T18:00:02","slug":"quantum-physics-has-the-answer-to-making-better-holograms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=3215","title":{"rendered":"Quantum physics has the answer to making better holograms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Once, holograms were just a scientific curiosity. But thanks to the rapid development of lasers, they have gradually moved center stage, appearing on the security imagery for credit cards and <span>banknotes<\/span>, in science fiction movies \u2013 most memorably Star Wars \u2013 and even \u201clive\u201d on stage when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/report-tupac-hologram-at-coachella-cost-at-least-100k-192224\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">long-dead rapper<\/a> Tupac reincarnated for fans at the Coachella music festival in 2012.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/topics\/physics-and-astronomy\/holography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Holography<\/a> is the photographic process of recording light that is scattered by an object and presenting it in a three-dimensional way. Invented in the early 1950s by the Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/161777a0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">discovery<\/a> later earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond banknotes, passports, and controversial rappers, holography has become an essential tool for other practical applications including data storage, biological microscopy, medical imaging, and medical diagnosis. In a technique called holographic microscopy, scientists make holograms to decipher biological mechanisms in tissues and living cells. For example, this technique is routinely used to analyze red blood cells to detect the presence of malaria parasites and to identify sperm cells for IVF processes.<\/p>\n<p>But now we have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-020-01156-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">discovered<\/a> a new type of quantum holography to overcome the limitations of conventional holographic approaches. This groundbreaking discovery could lead to improved medical imaging and speed up the advance of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Quantum_information_science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">quantum information science<\/a>. This is a scientific field that covers all technologies based on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chadorzel\/2015\/07\/08\/six-things-everyone-should-know-about-quantum-physics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">quantum physics<\/a>, including quantum computing and quantum communications.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8N_Cj3ZS9-A?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/figure>\n<h2>How holograms work<\/h2>\n<p>Classical holography creates two-dimensional renderings of three-dimensional objects with a beam of laser light split into two paths. The path of one beam, known as the object beam, illuminates the holography\u2019s subject, with the reflected light collected by a camera or special holographic film. The path of the second beam, known as the reference beam, is bounced from a mirror directly onto the collection surface without touching the subject.<\/p>\n<p><em>[Read:&nbsp;<a class=\"c-link c-message_attachment__title_link\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/plugged\/2020\/11\/27\/build-pet-friendly-gadget-experts-animal-owners-design\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-qa=\"message_attachment_title_link\"><span dir=\"auto\">How do you build a pet-friendly gadget? We asked experts and animal owners<\/span><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The hologram is created by measuring the differences in the light\u2019s phase, where the two beams meet. The phase is the amount the waves of the subject and object beams mingle and interfere with each other. A bit like waves at the surface of a swimming pool, the interference phenomenon creates a complex wave pattern in space that contains both regions where the waves cancel each other (troughs), and others where they add (crests).<\/p>\n<p>Interference generally requires light to be \u201ccoherent\u201d \u2013 having the same frequency everywhere. The light emitted by a laser, for example, is coherent, and this is why this type of light is used in most holographic systems.<\/p>\n<h2>Holography with entanglement<\/h2>\n<p>So optical coherence is vital to any holographic process. But our new study circumvents the need for coherence in holography by exploiting something called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chadorzel\/2017\/02\/28\/how-do-you-create-quantum-entanglement\/?sh=6bbfed1f1732\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">quantum entanglement<\/a>\u201d between light particles called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature03280\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">photons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Conventional holography fundamentally relies on optical coherence because, firstly, light must interfere to produce holograms, and secondly, light must be coherent to interfere. However, the second part is not entirely true because there are certain types of light that can be both incoherent and produce interference. This is the case for light made of entangled photons, emitted by a quantum source in the form of a flow of particles grouped in pairs \u2013 entangled photons.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DbbWx2COU0E?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p>These pairs carry a unique property called quantum entanglement. When two particles are entangled, they are intrinsically connected and effectively act as a single object, even though they may be separated in space. As a result, any measurement performed on one entangled particle affects the entangled system as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>In our study, the two photons of each pair are separated and sent in two different directions. One photon is sent towards an object, which could be, for example, a microscope slide with a biological sample on it. When it hits the object, the photon will be slightly deviated or slowed a bit depending on the thickness of the sample material it has passed through. But, as a quantum object, a photon has the surprising property of behaving not only as a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Particle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">particle<\/a>, but also simultaneously as a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wave\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">wave<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Such <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/explainer-what-is-wave-particle-duality-7414\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">wave-particle duality<\/a> property enables it to not only probe the thickness of the object at the precise location it hit it (as a larger particle would do), but to measure its thickness along its entire length all at once. The thickness of the sample \u2013 and therefore its three-dimensional structure \u2013 becomes \u201cimprinted\u201d onto the photon.<\/p>\n<p>Because the photons are entangled, the projection imprinted on one photon is simultaneously shared by both. The interference phenomenon then occurs remotely, without the need to overlap the beams, and a hologram is finally obtained by detecting the two photons using separate cameras and measuring correlations between them.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\" readability=\"3\">\n<p><figure class=\"post-image post-mediaBleed aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px\" alt=\"A diagram showing entangled photons creating a new kind of hologram.\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" class=\" lazy\" data-lazy=\"true\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=398&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=398&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=398&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=500&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=500&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/384756\/original\/file-20210217-13-1tipy3i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=500&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\"><\/a><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/science\/2021\/02\/21\/quantum-physics-key-to-better-holograms-syndication\/#\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthenextweb.com%2Fscience%2F2021%2F02%2F21%2Fquantum-physics-key-to-better-holograms-syndication%2F&amp;via=thenextweb&amp;related=thenextweb&amp;text=Check out this picture on: How a hologram is created using entangled photons. University of Glasgow, Author provided\" data-title=\"Share How a hologram is created using entangled photons. University of Glasgow, Author provided on Twitter\" data-width=\"685\" data-height=\"500\" class=\"post-image-share popitup\" title=\"Share How a hologram is created using entangled photons. University of Glasgow, Author provided on Twitter\"><i class=\"icon icon--inline icon--twitter--dark\"><\/i><\/a>How a hologram is created using entangled photons. University of Glasgow, Author provided<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The most impressive aspect of this quantum holographic approach is that the interference phenomenon occurs even though the photons never interact with each other and can be separated by any distance \u2013 an aspect that is called \u201cnon-locality\u201d \u2013 and is enabled by the presence of quantum entanglement between the photons.<\/p>\n<p>So the object that we measure and the final measurements could be performed at opposite ends of the planet. Beyond this fundamental interest, the use of entanglement instead of optical coherence in a holographic system provides practical advantages such as better stability and noise resilience. This is because quantum entanglement is a property that is inherently difficult to access and control, and therefore has the advantage to be less sensitive to external deviations.<\/p>\n<p>These advantages mean we can produce biological images of much better quality than those obtained with current microscopy techniques. Soon this quantum holographic approach could be used to unravel biological structures and mechanisms inside cells that had never been observed before.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/155056\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" class=\" lazy\" data-lazy=\"true\"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><em>This article by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/hugo-defienne-1209944\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Hugo Defienne<\/a>, Lecturer and Marie Curie Fellow, School of Physics &amp; Astronomy, <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-glasgow-1269\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">University of Glasgow<\/a> is republished from <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/quantum-leap-how-we-discovered-a-new-way-to-create-a-hologram-155056\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/science\/2021\/02\/21\/quantum-physics-key-to-better-holograms-syndication\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once, holograms were just a scientific curiosity. But thanks to the rapid development of lasers, they have gradually moved center stage, appearing on the security imagery for credit cards and banknotes, in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}