Research on spatially structured light has seen an explosion in activity over the past decades, powered by technological advances for generating such light and driven by questions of fundamental science as well as engineering applications. In this review, the authors highlight their work on the interaction of vector light fields with atoms, and matter in general. This vibrant research area explores the full potential of light, with clear benefits for classical as well as quantum applications.
Research on spatially structured light has seen an explosion in activity over the past decades, powered by technological advances for generating such light and driven by questions of fundamental science as well as engineering applications. In this review, the authors highlight their work on the interaction of vector light fields with atoms, and matter in general. This vibrant research area explores the full potential of light, with clear benefits for classical as well as quantum applications.
Quantum mechanics is now a mature topic dating back more than a century. During its scientific development, it fostered many technological advances that now are integrated into our everyday lives. More recently, over the past few decades, the authors have seen the emergence of a second quantum revolution, ushering in control of quantum states. Here, the spatial modes of light, “patterns of light,” hold tremendous potential: light is weakly interacting and so an attractive avenue for exploring entanglement preservation in open systems, while spatial modes of light offer a route to high dimensional Hilbert spaces for larger encoding alphabets, promising higher information capacity per photon, better security, and enhanced robustness to noise. Yet, progress in harnessing high dimensional spatial mode entanglement remains in its infancy. Here, the authors review the recent progress in this regard, outlining the core concepts in a tutorial manner before delving into the advances made in creation, manipulation, and detection of such quantum states. The authors cover advances in using orbital angular momentum as well as vectorial states that are hybrid entangled, combining spatial modes with polarization to form an infinite set of two-dimensional spaces: multidimensional entanglement. The authors highlight the exciting work in pushing the boundaries in both the dimension and the photon number, before finally summarizing the open challenges, and the questions that remain unanswered.
Photon sciences and technologies establish the building blocks for myriad scientific and engineering frontiers in life and energy sciences.In this perspective article, we map current and emerging linkages between three intersecting areas of research stewarded by advanced photonics technologies, namely light by design, outlined as (1) quantum & structured photonics, (2) light-matter interactions in accelerators and accelerator-based light sources, and (3) ultrafast sciences & quantum molecular dynamics.In each section, we will concentrate on state-of-the-art achievements and present prospective applications in life sciences, biochemistry, quantum optics and information sciences, and environmental and chemical engineering, all founded on a broad range of photon sources and methodologies.
Optical light-matter interaction drives a vast array of innovative sensing applications, pushing the boundaries of industrial technological advancement. This overview highlights our on-going research efforts at the intersection of fundamental science and industrial application. Specifically, we present recent progress in: (a) the identification of levitated charged nanoparticles via optical spectroscopy in a Paul trap; (b) high-sensitivity magnetic field measurements using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a room-temperature alkali vapor.
The interaction of light and matter at the single-photon level is of central importance in various fields of physics, including, e.g., condensed matter physics, astronomy, quantum optics, and quantum information. Amplification of such quantum light–matter interaction can be highly beneficial to, e.g., improve device performance, explore novel phenomena, and understand fundamental physics, and has therefore been a long-standing goal. Furthermore, simulation of light–matter interaction in the regime of ultrastrong coupling, where the interaction strength is comparable to the bare frequencies of the uncoupled systems, has also become a hot research topic, and considerable progress has been made both theoretically and experimentally in the past decade. In this review, we provide a detailed introduction of recent advances in amplification of quantum light–matter interaction and simulation of ultrastrong light–matter interaction, particularly in cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics and in cavity optomechanics.
Intensive studies on light–matter interactions and technological breakthroughs, especially conducted in the field of dressed photon research, have led to a growing concern regarding unsettled off-shell quantum field interactions. The Special Issue, entitled “Quantum Fields and Off-Shell Sciences”, was organized to promote the progress of such research activities from a wider perspective, not limited to dressed photon studies. This book contains excellent papers that were published in this Special Issue. It will provide scientific and technical information on the quantum fields and off-shell sciences to scientists, engineers, and students who are and will be engaged in this field.