Probing Vision with Quantum Light
Introduction
The perception of light is central for almost all animal life on earth. While human and animal vision is mostly addressed with classical light stimulus, modern quantum optics provides for alternative probes.
Quantum light sources, in particular single-photon sources, lead to photon statistics exhibiting a narrower distribution than the Poisson statistics of coherent laser light, or wider distributions relevant to thermal light. In this work we study what is the quantum advantage provided by quantum light when it is used as stimulus light to probe the human visual system.
Our Contributions
Together with the group of Ozgur Mustecaplioglu at Koc University we have studied the retinal network using quantum light as stimulus, and attempting to perform enhanced quantum metrology. In particular, we have shown that errors in the estimation of neuronal connection weights can be significantly suppressed by using single photons as light stimulus for rod cells.
Together with Michail Loulakis at the National Technical University of Athens we further explored our quantum biometric methodology, this time using single photons as a stimulus light. We have shown that the quantum advantage translates into a small reduction in interrogation time, compared to using coherence light instead.
This program fits well into our general research program on quantum vision, which consists of synthesizing quantum optics with the physiology of human vision.