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Quantum physics

Total surveillance

Nature volume 446, pages 275–276 (2007)Cite this article

Trapped by mirrors, a photon can be monitored from birth to death by a stream of passing atoms. The technique could also be used to entangle the quantum states of many atoms — a possible boon for quantum computing.

“You measured this only once?” Such enquiries from professor to student are often heard in the experimental laboratory. But although the necessity of repeat measurements might be self-evident in the classical world, things are not quite so straightforward for quantum measurements. This is because the tiny objects of quantum desire — single photons, for instance — are easily destroyed simply by measuring them. On page 297 of this issue, Serge Haroche and colleagues (Gleyzes et al.)1 observe for the first time a single photon in a sequence of about 100 consecutive measurements, recording it from the instant of its birth to the moment of its death.

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Figure 1: They do it with mirrors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler is at the Institut für Quanteninformationsverarbeitung, Universität Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, D-89069 Ulm, Germany. ferdinand.schmidt-kaler@uni-ulm.de,

    Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler

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  1. Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler
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Schmidt-Kaler, F. Total surveillance. Nature 446, 275–276 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/446275a

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