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Nature Photonics 2, 268 - 269 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nphoton.2008.59

Quantum optics: Beyond single-photon counting

Alexander V. Sergienko1

  1. Alexander V. Sergienko is in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Department of Physics, Boston University, 8 Saint Mary's Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02215-2421, USA.
    e-mail: alexserg@bu.edu


The ability to distinguish how many photons comprise a particular state of light leads to significant benefits in practical quantum information processing and quantum cryptography. Superconducting nanostructures provide an effective solution at telecom wavelengths.


Optical quantum information processing is at the frontier of modern physics and optics. It is a topic that relies heavily on manipulating single-photon states: exciting experimental applications, such as quantum cryptography, entanglement swapping and quantum-state teleportation, would be impossible without single-photon-counting detectors1.

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