Quantum Biometrics with Retinal Photon Counting
Michail Loulakis, Georgios Blatsios, Charikleia Spyridon Vrettou, Iannis K. Kominis · Physical Review Applied · 2017
Nature has been working on single-photon technology for a lot longer than we have, so why not reap the benefits? Taking advantage of the well-studied capability of the human retina for single-photon detection, this project proposes ultrasecure biometric identification based on the perception of weak flashes of light. The authors turn the physics of photon statistics and the related detection by the eye into a quantum parameter-estimation problem, leading to a biometric quantifier. The security of this ``fingerprint'', based on subject-specific optical-loss parameters, can be understood and quantified---and guaranteed---by the physics of quantum measurement.