Quantum differential holography

Abstract Holography provides an effective solution for retrieving the complex optical field, laying the foundation of precision measurement ranging from biological imaging to material analysis. However, conventional holography relies on splitting photon paths by a bulky interferometer to locally modulate the interference field, yielding only the wrapped phase. To overcome this, a quantum differential holography (QDH) is proposed, which employs a metasurface-integrated optical differentiator to achieve nonlocal polarization interference within a single signal photon path. The phase information is optically encoded as derivatives within the measured intensity, eliminating the fragile arctangent-based phase unwrapping step that plagues low-visibility fringe reconstruction. Furthermore, interference is remotely modulated by selecting the basis of an idler photon whose polarization is entangled with the spatiotemporal field of signal photon. The QDH provides a compact and stable quantum holographic platform, which unlocks additional possibilities for biomedicine, materials science, and quantum information processing.