Recently, a significant breakthrough has been made in the realm of single-photon manipulation by the research team led by Associate Professor Jiefei Chen at the Institute of Quantum Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology. The team has successfully achieved, for the first time experimentally, the generation of single-photon nonclassical light sources in the spatiotemporal (2+1) dimensions, known as Airy bullets. Their groundbreaking research titled "Spatiotemporal single-photon Airy bullets" has been published in the prestigious academic journal Physical Review Letters and has received editorial commendation.
Single-Photon Airy Bullet Imagery Image Source: Southern University of Science and Technology
Photons possess the fastest flight speed and are insensitive to environmental disturbances. Moreover, photons can carry a rich variety of quantum information, making them ideal for long-distance transmission of quantum information, which not only facilitates the efficient transfer of quantum states between quantum nodes but also enhances information security. However, even ideal quantum light sources are limited by their spatiotemporal modes, as single photons are still subject to issues such as dispersion, spatial diffusion, and diffraction when transmitting over long distances like classical light beams.
In the field of classical light field manipulation, there is a solution to this problem, which involves the use of non-diffusing special light fields, such as Airy beams. Airy beams possess propagation invariance, meaning they undergo no diffraction during propagation and can self-heal. The Airy function is the unique non-diffusing solution to the one-dimensional propagation equation in the near-axis approximation. Advanced laser technology has already achieved Airy bullets in both spatial and temporal degrees of freedom. However, the control of non-classical light fields using Airy modulation is very limited. The research team led by Prof. Jiefei Chen is utilizing cutting-edge light quantum manipulation techniques to achieve complete spatial and temporal control of single photons, termed single-photon Airy bullets.
This work utilizes a cold atomic ensemble as a medium and achieves, for the first time, spatiotemporal all-dimensional control of single-photon Airy bullets. During the process of transmitting quantum states using light between quantum nodes, the mode distribution of light in time, frequency, or space can adopt Airy waveforms, thereby addressing issues such as dispersion and diffraction during transmission using Airy bullets. Single-photon Airy bullets will be further applied to experimental research in quantum communication and quantum information processing.
The American Physical Society's online magazine, Physics Magazine, reported on this work and provided detailed commentary on its significance. The commentary states that this work provides an effective path for the complete spatiotemporal control of single photons, and it is worth exploring whether this strategy can be extended to other types of light beam shaping while maintaining the same efficiency.
Southern University of Science and Technology is the first unit of the paper, with Jiefei Chen and researcher Georgios A. Siviloglou as corresponding authors. Wang Jianmin, a doctoral student at the Institute of Quantum Science and Engineering, is the first author of the paper. Collaborator Professor Demetrios Christodoulides from the University of Southern California provided theoretical support for this work.
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