An Experiment to Show Both the Classical Wave and Particle Behaviors of Light

Hui Yan, Kai-Yu Liao, Zhitao Deng +4 more

Light's wave-particle duality is at the heart of quantum mechanics and can be well illustrated by Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment: The choice of inserting or removing the second classical (quantum) beam splitter in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer determines the classical (quantum) wave-particle behavior of a photon. In this paper, we report our experiment on directly observing simultaneous wave and particle behavior in a narrowband single-photon wave packet by classically inserting or removing the second beam splitter when part of the wave packet passes through it. Our experiment demonstrates that the produced wave-particle state can be utilized in encoding quantum information.

Nakka Gurappa, S. Devashankar

Christian Cormier-Delanoue

Raymond Hv Gallucci

The classic double-slit experiment, first performed by Young in 1801, is often cited as proving the dual wave-particle nature of light, with an emphasis on the wave aspect. In fact, when first conducted, the conclusion refuted Newton’s postulate of a corpuscular nature to light in favor of light being purely a wave. Not until the discovery of the photoelectric effect did light’s potential behavior as a particle become rejuvenated. This paper examines a possibly enhanced role for light’s corpuscular nature beyond what is currently assigned as a result of the double-slit experimental results in hope of opening yet another avenue of exploration into the still mysterious nature of light.

Allyson L. O’Brien

Wave-particle duality of light has dumbfounded physical scientists for centuries. Sir Isaac Newton contended that light was made up of individual particles while Hooke (who was utterly despised by Newton) wrote on the wave-like properties of light.[6] In 1801, Thomas Young’s double slit experiment demonstrated wavelike properties of light. In 1905, Einstein revisited the theory of light acting as a particle to resolve conflicts between the wave theory of light and certain experimental results such as the photoelectric effect.[11] Experiments confirming particle-like properties of light were not realized until later in the 20th century. In 1981, Grangier, Roger and Aspect published a paper titled Experimental Evidence for a Photon Anticorrelation Effect on a Beam Splitter: A New Light on Single-Photon Interferences. This paper reported on one of the first successful anticoincidence experiments which measured the particle-like behavior of light. The paper also reported on an experiment that used the same source and detection scheme as the anticoincidence experiment, which measured interference. Grangier, Roger and Aspect eloquently depicted the conundrum of the waveparticle duality of light. To what extent does this this complementary nature of light exist? How does light know when to display wave-like or particle-like properties? One popular answer to this was that light can ‘sense’ what the experiment is attempting to measure. Based on the initial ‘feel,’ light would decide whether or not it will display wave-like or particle-like behavior before entering the experiment. This hypothesis is aptly named the conspiracy theory.[2]

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