DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: in line 3, the phrase “into an idler” appears to be redundant. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-2, 4-5, 7-9, 12-13, 19, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication No. 2022/0113529 ("Bond") in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0333750 ("Zhuang").
Regarding claim 1, Bond discloses a hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system, comprising:
an entangled photon source (SPDC crystal, Fig. 1, or quantum light source, Fig. 6) configured to generate a plurality of entangled photon pairs (paragraphs [0028], [0087]), each entangled photon pair split into an idler photon (idler, Fig. 1, or see Fig. 6) and a signal photon (signal, Fig. 1);
an idler arm optical assembly (see idler arm, Figs. 1, 6) configured to pass the idler photon of each entangled photon pair in one or more passes through an idler [lens] pair (see two lenses in idler arm, Figs. 1, 6);
a signal arm optical assembly (see signal arm, Figs. 1, 6) configured to pass the signal photon of each entangled photon pair at least once through an object plane (object, Fig. 1, or sample, Fig. 6) of a signal [lens] pair (see two lenses in signal arm, Fig. 1, or see lenses and i-obj. and s-obj., Fig. 6); and
a detector (coincidence detection, Fig. 1) configured for coincidence detection of the idler photon and signal photon of each entangled photon pair to acquire a plurality of coincidence measurements (coincidence detection, Fig. 1, paragraphs [0027],[0035], [0074]-[0075], [0089]).
Bond does not explicitly disclose objective pairs in the idler and signal arms.
However, Zhuang discloses an imaging system using at least two objectives (Obj1, Obj2, Fig. 1B).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to use objective pairs as disclosed by Zhuang in the device of Bond in order to obtain better axial resolution and noise reduction.
Regarding claim 2, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, and Bond further discloses one or more beam-splitting elements (M1, Fig. 6) configured to split each entangled photon pair (paragraph [0087]) into the idler photon (idler arm, Figs. 1, 6) and the signal photon (signal arm, Figs. 1, 6).
Regarding claim 4, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, wherein the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system is configured to use the plurality of coincidence measurements to yield one or more coincidence images with a spatial resolution of up to four times a spatial resolution of a classical image acquired by a classical imaging system with an equivalent signal objective pair (Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the claimed structure, therefore it similarly yields a spatial resolution of up to four times that of a classical image).
Regarding claim 5, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, and Bond further discloses that the idler arm optical assembly and signal arm optical assembly are optically symmetric (see Fig. 1, both arms are symmetric).
Regarding claim 7, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, and Bond further discloses that the entangled photon source (SPDC crystal, Fig. 1) comprises a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source (paragraphs [0028], [0101]).
Regarding claim 8, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 7, and Bond further discloses that the spontaneous parametric down-conversion source comprises a β-barium borate crystal (BBO crystal, paragraph [0087]) or a periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate crystal (paragraph [0067]).
Regarding claim 9, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, and Bond further discloses that the detector is an electron multiplying charge-coupled device (paragraph [0074]).
Regarding claim 12, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, and Bond further discloses that the detector is a single detector (bucket detector, Fig. 1) or a detector array (array detector, Fig. 1, paragraph [0031]).
Regarding claim 13, Bond in view of Zhuang discloses the hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging system of claim 1, and Bond further discloses that the detector comprises a single-photon counting detector (SPAD, paragraph [0034]) or a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD, paragraph [0034]).
Regarding claim 19, Bond discloses a hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging method comprising:
generating a plurality of entangled photon pairs (SPDC crystal, Fig. 1, or quantum light source, Fig. 6, paragraph [0028], [0087]);
splitting each entangled photon pair into an idler photon (idler, Fig. 1, or see Fig. 6) and a signal photon (signal, Fig. 1, or see Fig. 6);
passing the idler photon of each entangled photon pair in one or more passes through an idler [lens] pair (see two lenses in idler arm, Figs. 1, 6);
passing the signal photon of each entangled photon pair at least once through a signal [lens] pair (see two lenses in signal arm, Fig. 1, or see lenses and i-obj. and s-obj., Fig. 6);
taking a plurality of coincidence measurements based on coincidence detection of signal photons from the signal arm and idler photons from the idler arm (coincidence detection, Fig. 1, paragraphs [0027],[0035], [0074]-[0075], [0089]); and
determining a coincidence image based on the plurality of coincidence measurements (paragraph [0031], [0039]).
Bond does not explicitly disclose objective pairs in the idler and signal arms.
However, Zhuang discloses an imaging system using at least two objectives (Obj1, Obj2, Fig. 1B).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to use objective pairs as disclosed by Zhuang in the device of Bond in order to obtain better axial resolution and noise reduction.
Regarding claim 28, Bond discloses a hyper-Heisenberg scaling quantum imaging method comprising:
causing generation of a plurality of entangled photon pairs, wherein each entangled photon pair is split into an idler photon and a signal photon (SPDC crystal, Fig. 1, or quantum light source, Fig. 6, paragraph [0028], [0087]);
causing an idler photon of each entangled photon pair to be transmitted in one or more passes through an idler [lens] pair (see two lenses in idler arm, Figs. 1, 6), wherein the signal photon of each entangled photon pair is transmitted at least once through a signal [lens] pair (see two lenses in signal arm, Fig. 1, or see lenses and i-obj. and s-obj., Fig. 6);
taking a plurality of coincidence measurements based on coincidence detection of signal photons from the signal arm and idler photons from the idler arm (coincidence detection, Fig. 1, paragraphs [0027],[0035], [0074]-[0075], [0089]); and
determining a coincidence image based on the plurality of coincidence measurements (paragraph [0031], [0039]).
Bond does not explicitly disclose objective pairs in the idler and signal arms.
However, Zhuang discloses an imaging system using at least two objectives (Obj1, Obj2, Fig. 1B).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to use objective pairs as disclosed by Zhuang in the device of Bond in order to obtain better axial resolution and noise reduction.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 6, 10-11, 14-18, 20-27, and 29 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 3, 6, 10-11, and 14-18, the invention as claimed, specifically in combination with either: the idler objective pair is identical to the signal objective pair; or optical paths of the signal photon and the idler photon between a source Fourier plane and a detection plane at the detector have equivalent optical pathlengths and magnification ratios; or the one or more beam-splitting elements comprises a prism; or one or more optical elements configured to adjust the one or more passes through the idler objective pair; or a controller is configured to send one or more control signals to a half-wave plate in the idler arm optical assembly to adjust the one or more passes; or the idler arm optical assembly is configured to pass the idler photon of each entangled photon pair in a plurality of passes through the idler objective pair; are not taught or made obvious by the prior art of record.
Regarding claims 20-27, the invention as claimed, specifically in combination with either: determining the coincidence image from the pixel-to-pixel covariances; or denoising the coincidence image; or detecting only signal photons without coincidence detection to take a plurality of measurements; and generating one or more classical images from the plurality of measurements; or adjusting one or more optical components to pass the idler photon of each entangled photon pair in one or more passes through an idler objective pair; or adjusting a fast axis of a half-wave plate to pass the idler photon of each entangled photon pair in a plurality of passes through an idler objective pair; are not taught or made obvious by the prior art of record.
Regarding claim 29, the invention as claimed, specifically in combination with: determining the coincidence image from the pixel-to-pixel covariances, is not taught or made obvious by the prior art of record.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
NPL document: Ono, T., Okamoto, R. & Takeuchi, S. “An entanglement-enhanced microscope.” Nat Commun 4, 2426 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3426, discloses an entanglement-enhanced microscope that uses an objective pair (see Fig. 2a), but does not disclose the splitting entangled photon pairs into idler and signal arms.
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/MONICA T TABA/Examiner, Art Unit 2878