Quantum-locked tomography for turbulence immune 3D imaging at the micron scale

Random phase perturbations in dynamic media fundamentally limit a broad class of conventional optical imaging, causing severe motion artifacts and resolution degradation in applications from in vivo biomedical tomography to remote sensing. Here, we demonstrate that quantum optical coherence tomography (QOCT), leveraging Hong–Ou–Mandel interference of entangled photons, achieves unprecedented resilience against these disturbances and provides quantitative formulas characterizing this robustness. Theoretically, QOCT exhibits >10-fold slower visibility decay than classical optical coherence tomography (OCT) under random phase fluctuations. Experimentally, it maintains >90 % baseline visibility through turbulent media—conditions where OCT fails. Crucially, this robustness stems from intrinsic quantum properties: interference detection between indistinguishable paths of frequency-entangled identical photons eliminates random path length perturbations and provides native axial resolution doubling (versus classical OCT at identical bandwidth), with neither post-processing nor system modifications required. We validate QOCT’s capability by performing micron-scale 3D tomography of structured targets through dynamic turbid liquids, achieving high-fidelity reconstructions under strong flow turbulence (Reynolds number >5600). This work establishes a paradigm for quantum-enhanced imaging, enabling high-precision volumetric tomography in scenarios from motion artifact-free biological diagnosis to non-contact subaquatic mapping through turbulent air–water interfaces.