Ghost Imaging plenottico

One of the most important research fields of the last decades is the quantum technologies, due to their ability to overcome the limits of classical systems. Quantum technologies range from quantum computing and quantum communication to quantum sensing, metrology and imaging. Quantum imaging, in particular, is a sub field of quantum optics whose main purpose is to improve new imaging schemes improving sensitivity or resolution thanks to quantum properties (such as entanglement) of light in order to overcome the classical optic limits. An innovative method born in this context is the ghost imaging (GI) . GI is a imaging technique in which the object image is obtained by using two spatially correlated beams: one of them (called the reference beam) never interacts with the object and is measured with a detector with spatial resolution; the other beam (called the object beam) illuminates the object but it is measured with a single pixel detector, which has no spatial resolution. The image is retrieved by correlating each pixel of the sensor on the reference arm with the single pixel detector in the object arm. Potentially, GI can have many applications, since one can substitute a complex optical imaging system and a pixelated camera in the object path with a simple single pixel detector. Moreover, GI turns out intrinsically robust to scattering and turbulence in the object arm. However, one of the requirement for GI is the knowledge of the object plane position in order to project there the intensity pattern that is conjugated to one measured in the second arm. This drawback is one of the limitations that reduces GI applicability in realistic scenarios. During my thesis I explored a variant of GI, the Plenoptic Ghost Imaging (PGI), a technique that allows GI reconstruction of different object planes using a plenoptic camera as spatial resolving sensor in the second arm. A plenoptic camera is a particular type of device that captures, through a micro lens array placed between main lens and sensor, the directional information of the light field. Thanks to this information it is possible to refocus different planes. For that reason, PGI, on one side allow three dimensional GI reconstruction, on the other side removes the aforementioned limitation of standard GI, dramatically extending its depth of field. In particular I have realized a comprehensive simulation of the plenoptic system, from the source to the detection, considering a pseudo-thermal optical source. The results of the thesis will be used in a forthcoming experiment and, in perspective, for the realization of the first prototype of this new technique