UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Enhanced Imaging
Part of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme, the Quantum Imaging Hub brings together the Universities of Glasgow, Bristol, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, Oxford and Strathclyde.
The Hub’s vision is to work in partnership with industry to translate our world-leading discovery science into revolutionary imaging systems that will benefit the UK economy across commercial, scientific and security sectors.
The Quantum Imaging Hub will include dedicated innovation space where our industrial partners can co-locate and work closely with the academic team.
Principal investigator
- Professor Miles Padgett FRS
Director
- Professor Steve Beaumont FREng
What we will do: research and innovation objectives
Quantum Technologies can both improve existing imaging systems and create new possibilities for sensing that are inaccessible with classical strategies.
Our overarching objective is to pioneer a family of multidimensional cameras operating across a range of wavelengths, timescales and length-scales.
Innovations will include:
- Single-photon visible and infrared cameras of unprecedented sensitivity.
- Compressed sensing and sub shot-noise imaging subjecting the object to the minimum illumination.
- Extreme timing-resolution single-photon cameras giving 3D ranging or time-gated imaging immune to the effects of aberrations or where line of sight is blocked.
- Single-pixel cameras, creating an alternative to expensive or unobtainable focal-plane detector arrays.
- Exploiting quantum time/number correlations, enhancing signal-to-noise in imaging and spectroscopy.
- Quantum entangled sources enabling visible images to be acquired using only infrared illumination, or infrared spectral signatures manifest in visible light.
How we will work: our approach and our partners
Discovery Science and Skills Development
The programme of the proposed Quantum Enhanced Imaging Hub builds upon the research portfolio of our extended team. Hub members hold £50M 0f EPSRC funding, complemented by a range of other substantial grants including 5 ERC grants, an STFC consolidated grant, and awards from the EU, Royal Society, DSTL and DARPA.
The Hub’s HEI partners lead a number of new EPSRC CDTs including: Sensor and Imaging Systems (Glasgow/Edinburgh); Applied Photonics (Heriot-Watt); Medical Devices & Health Technologies (Strathclyde); and Quantum Engineering (Bristol).
Our international reach is enhanced both by partnerships with the Max-Planck Society and Fraunhofer UK and links with HEIs and relevant industries in California.
Together, we will advance the understanding and development of sensor/source technology, focusing on three key imaging properties:
- Imaging with correlation
- Imaging with timing
- Imaging with sqeezing
Integrate, validate and deploy
The Hub will deliver new technology, bringing unprecedented advances in imaging in the industrial, scientific, security, healthcare and consumer sectors.
Our industry led 'Opportunities Panel' will direct the allocation of our £4M Partnership Resource to support industry-led projects delivering benefit to the UK economy. The partnership resource will be used to develop and refine prototypes; and proof of concept projects will enable two-way secondments between industry and academia, and support for short industry-led projects.
Further information
Contact us
Dr Sara Diegoli
Quantum Enhanced Imaging Hub Manager
- telephone: 01413302338
- email: Sara.Diegoli@glasgow.ac.uk
