We propose a new experimentally verified ghost imaging (GI) mechanism, derivative GI. Our innovation is that we use the derivatives of the intensities of the test light and the reference light for imaging. Experimental results show that by combining derivative GI with the standard GI algorithm, multiple independent signals can be obtained in one measurement. This combination greatly reduces the number of measurements and the time required for data acquisition and imaging. Derivative GI intrinsically does not produce the storage-consuming background term of GI, so it is suitable for on-chip implementation and makes practical application of GI easier.

We report an experimental implementation of free-space quantum secure direct communication based on single photons. The quantum communication scheme uses phase encoding, and the asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer is optimized so as to automatically compensate phase drift of the photons during their transitions over the free-space medium. At a 16 MHz pulse repetition frequency, an information transmission rate of 500 bps over a 10 m free space with a mean quantum bit error rate of 0.49%±0.27% is achieved. The security is analyzed under the scenario that Eve performs the collective attack for single-photon state and the photon number splitting attack for multi-photon state in the depolarizing channel. Our results show that quantum secure direct communication is feasible in free space.

Based on the dispersive interaction between a high quality factor microcavity and nano-objects, whispering-gallery-mode microcavities have been widely used in highly sensitive sensing. Here, we propose a novel method to enhance the sensitivity of the optical frequency shift and reduce the impact of the laser frequency noise on the detection resolution through Brillouin cavity optomechanics in a parity-time symmetric system. The optical spring effect is sensitive to the perturbation of optical modes around the exceptional point. By monitoring the shift of the mechanical frequency, the detection sensitivity for the optical frequency shift is enhanced by 2 orders of magnitude compared with conventional approaches. We find the optical spring effect is robust to the laser frequency noise around the exceptional point, which can reduce the detection limitation caused by the laser frequency instability. Thus, our method can improve the sensing ability for nano-object sensing and other techniques based on the frequency shift of the optical mode.