Optical authentication via photon-synthesized ghost imaging using optical nonlinear correlation

• Photon-synthesized ghost imaging.
• Sparse reference intensity patterns for the modulation of recovered objects.
• Synthesized optical data are effectively authenticated.

We present a method for optical authentication via photon-synthesized ghost imaging using optical nonlinear correlation. In ghost imaging, multiple series of photons recorded at the object beam arm can be arbitrarily controlled for the generation of synthesized objects. Ghost imaging with sparse reference intensity patterns provides a channel to effectively modulate the noise-like synthesized objects during the recovery, and the reconstructed (noise-like) objects, i.e., added or subtracted information, can be further authenticated by optical nonlinear correlation algorithm. It is expected that the proposed method can provide an effective and promising alternative for ghost-imaging-based optical processing.