Single Photon Operations

Quantum mechanics says that a light field is composed of photons, but who cares about single photons while even a small laser pointer emits trillions of photons per second? Quantum optics researchers are now able to localize single photons for a test of various theories in fundamental physics including nonlocalities and the Schroedingerís cat paradox. As well as the fundamental interests, there have been proposals and realizations of new technology based on single-photon operations for quantum key distributions and precision measurements. In this talk, we show how we can operate at the single photon level. We then show what we can do with the single photons for the study of foundations and applications of quantum physics.

References

[1] V. Parigi et al, ëProbing the quantum commutation rules by addition and subtraction of single photons to/from a light fieldí, Science 317, 1890 (2007).

[2] M. S. Kim et al., ëScheme for proving the bosonic commutation relation using single-photon interferenceí Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 260401 (2008).

[3] M.D. Vidrighin, ëPhotonic Maxwellís demoní, Phys. Rev. Lett. in press (2016).

[4] A.S. Coelho et al, ëuniversal continuous variable state orthogonalizer and qubit generatorí, Phys. Rev. Lett. in press (2016).

After a PhD and postdoctoral work at Imperial College London, Myungshik Kim moved back to his native, Korea, for a mandatory military service. He then got a faculty position at Sogang University which he held for a while. He was awarded a Humboldt fellowship to work at the Max-Planck Institute in Quantum Optics, after which he moved to the UK, firstly at Queens University then to Imperial College where he is now Head of Quantum Optics and Laser Science Group. He is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy and he was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award for his work in quantum optics and quantum information science.