Electromagnetically induced classical and quantum Lau effect

•Two imaging schemes for a medium that has no macro-structure are proposed.•Both schemes have the characteristic of arbitrarily controllable image variation in size.•The quantum scheme can image the EIG nonlocally.•Compared to the material grating, the EIG has the advantage of adjustability.

We present two schemes of Lau effect for an object, an electromagnetically induced grating generated based on the electromagnetically induced effect. The Lau interference pattern is detected either directly in the way of the traditional Lau effect measurement with a classical thermal light being the imaging light, or indirectly and nonlocally in the way of two-photon coincidence measurement with a pair of entangled photons being the imaging light.