Super-resolution from single photon emission: Toward biological application

Properties of quantum light represent a tool for overcoming limits of classical optics. Several experiments have demonstrated this advantage ranging from quantum enhanced imaging to quantum illumination. In this work, experimental demonstration of quantum-enhanced resolution in confocal fluorescence microscopy will be presented. This is achieved by exploiting the non-classical photon statistics of fluorescence emission of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers in diamond. By developing a general model of super-resolution based on the direct sampling of the kth-order autocorrelation function of the photoluminescence signal, we show the possibility to resolve, in principle, arbitrarily close emitting centers. Finally, possible applications of NV-based fluorescent nanodiamonds in biosensing and future developments will be presented.