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Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time
Feynman described the double slit experiment as “a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics”. The double-slit experiment, performed one photon at a time, dramatically demonstrates the particle-wave duali...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834479/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27087642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep24463 |
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author | Tempone-Wiltshire, Sebastien J. Johnstone, Shaun P. Helmerson, Kristian |
author_facet | Tempone-Wiltshire, Sebastien J. Johnstone, Shaun P. Helmerson, Kristian |
author_sort | Tempone-Wiltshire, Sebastien J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Feynman described the double slit experiment as “a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics”. The double-slit experiment, performed one photon at a time, dramatically demonstrates the particle-wave duality of quantum objects by generating a fringe pattern corresponding to the interference of light (a wave phenomenon) from two slits, even when there is only one photon (a particle) at a time passing through the apparatus. The particle-wave duality of light should also apply to complex three dimensional optical fields formed by multi-path interference, however, this has not been demonstrated. Here we observe particle-wave duality of a three dimensional field by generating a trefoil optical vortex knot – one photon at a time. This result demonstrates a fundamental physical principle, that particle-wave duality implies interference in both space (between spatially distinct modes) and time (through the complex evolution of the superposition of modes), and has implications for topologically entangled single photon states, orbital angular momentum multiplexing and topological quantum computing. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4834479 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-48344792016-04-27 Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time Tempone-Wiltshire, Sebastien J. Johnstone, Shaun P. Helmerson, Kristian Sci Rep Article Feynman described the double slit experiment as “a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics”. The double-slit experiment, performed one photon at a time, dramatically demonstrates the particle-wave duality of quantum objects by generating a fringe pattern corresponding to the interference of light (a wave phenomenon) from two slits, even when there is only one photon (a particle) at a time passing through the apparatus. The particle-wave duality of light should also apply to complex three dimensional optical fields formed by multi-path interference, however, this has not been demonstrated. Here we observe particle-wave duality of a three dimensional field by generating a trefoil optical vortex knot – one photon at a time. This result demonstrates a fundamental physical principle, that particle-wave duality implies interference in both space (between spatially distinct modes) and time (through the complex evolution of the superposition of modes), and has implications for topologically entangled single photon states, orbital angular momentum multiplexing and topological quantum computing. Nature Publishing Group 2016-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4834479/ /pubmed/27087642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep24463 Text en Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Tempone-Wiltshire, Sebastien J. Johnstone, Shaun P. Helmerson, Kristian Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
title | Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
title_full | Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
title_fullStr | Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
title_full_unstemmed | Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
title_short | Optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
title_sort | optical vortex knots – one photon at a time |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834479/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27087642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep24463 |
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