World Quantum Day – Alain Aspect, From Einstein to Wheeler: Wave-Particle duality of a single photon

The World Quantum Day is an initiative from quantum scientists around the World, launched on April 14, 2021 as the countdown towards the first global celebration on April 14, 2022.

 

It is a decentralized and bottom-up initiative, inviting all quantum scientists, engineers, educators, communicators, entrepreneurs, technologists, and their organizations, to organize their own activities, such as outreach talks, lab tours, debates, interviews, etc., to celebrate the World Quantum Day around the World.

 

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Talk for the general public

 

From Einstein to Wheeler: Wave-Particle duality of a single photon

Alain Aspect, Institut d’Optique Graduate School, Université Paris-Saclay

Venue: World Quantum Day YouTube Channel

Abstract: Wave-particle duality is a basic concept of quantum physics, first stated by Einstein about light, and developed about material particles by Louis de Broglie. When applied to a single particle, it allows us to illustrate one of the weirdest properties of the quantum world. I will present wave-particle duality based on using a real experiment, based on a single photon source, one of the key devices in the development of quantum technologies.

Biography: Alain Aspect is an alumnus of Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay) and Université d’Orsay (now Université Paris-Saclay). An emeritus distinguished scientist at CNRS, he is a professor at Institut d’Optique Graduate School (Université Paris-Saclay), and at Ecole Polytechnique, and author of textbooks and MOOCS on quantum optics.

He is a member of several science academies (France, USA, UK, Austria, Belgium, Italy)  and has received many prestigious international prizes.

Alain Aspect research has been devoted to experimental studies of quantum properties of light and ultra-cold atoms, at the root of quantum technologies.