Improving efficiency of ghost imaging by tapping into the obtained data

In ghost imaging, the imaging quality can be improved to a limit by increasing the number of samplings theoretically. However, the maximum achievable image quality is typically much lower than the theoretical limit. This maximum quality value, as well as the number of required samplings, can be regarded as representations of the capability to acquire information for an imaging system. In this paper, we propose the definition of imaging efficiency to quantitatively evaluate the capability of information acquisition. Based on the observation that the detected information is not fully reflected into the reconstructed image, we suggest to improve imaging efficiency by tapping into the obtained data. As an example, we demonstrate a post-processing method to improve imaging efficiency. The results showed that our method not only greatly improved the max value of imaging quality, but also reduced the number of required samplings needed to approach this max value.