Abstract

We observe non destructively photons trapped in a high Q cavity, generate quantum fields in “Schrödinger cat” like states and study their decoherence. Application of these studies to the processing of quantum information will be discussed. 150-word Biography: Serge Haroche, born in 1944 in Casablanca, graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), receiving his doctorate from Paris VI University in 1971. After a post-doctoral visit to Stanford University (1972-73), he became full professor at Paris VI University in 1975, a position he held until 2001, when he was appointed Professor at Collège de France. Since September 2012, he is the President (Administrateur) of this institution. Haroche’s research has mostly taken place in the laboratory Kastler Brossel at ENS. His main research activities have been in quantum optics and quantum information science. He has made important contributions to Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (Cavity QED), the domain of quantum optics which studies the behaviour of atoms interacting strongly with the field confined in a high-Q cavity. An atom-photon system isolated from the outside world by metallic walls realizes a very simple experimental model which Serge Haroche and his team have used to test fundamental aspects of quantum physics such as state superposition, entanglement, complementarity and decoherence. Serge Haroche has received many prizes and awards, culminating in the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics, shared with David Wineland. Article not available.

© 2013 Optical Society of America