Multi-pass microscopy

Microscopy of biological specimens often requires low light levels to avoid damage. This yields images impaired by shot noise. An improved measurement accuracy at the Heisenberg limit can be achieved exploiting quantum correlations. If sample damage is the limiting resource, an equivalent limit can be reached by passing photons through a specimen multiple times sequentially. Here we use self-imaging cavities and employ a temporal post-selection scheme to present full-field multi-pass polarization and transmission micrographs with variance reductions of 4.4 +/- 0.8 dB (11.6 +/- 0.8 dB in a lossless setup) and 4.8 +/- 0.8 dB, respectively, compared with the single-pass shot-noise limit. If the accuracy is limited by the number of detected probe particles, our measurements show a variance reduction of 25.9 +/- 0.9 dB. The contrast enhancement capabilities in imaging and in diffraction studies are demonstrated with nanostructured samples and with embryonic kidney 293T cells. This approach to Heisenberg-limited microscopy does not rely on quantum state engineering.