Science
Forming photonic bound states
Ian S. Osborne
Abstract
Quantum Optics Photons do not naturally interact with each other and must be coaxed into doing so. Liang et al. show that a gas of Rydberg atoms—a cloud of rubidium atoms excited by a sequence of laser pulses—can induce strong interactions between propagating photons. The authors could tune the strength of the interaction to make the photons form dimer and trimer bound states. This approach should prove useful for producing novel quantum states of light and quantum entanglement on demand. Science , this issue p. [783][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aao7293