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  • Perspective
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Quantum light in complex media and its applications

Nature Physics volume 18, pages 986–993 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 17 May 2023

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Abstract

Photons are often referred to as flying quantum bits, a phrase that emphasizes both their quantum character and their ability to carry quantum information between two distant points. To what extent this holds for complex disordered media, such as the turbulent atmosphere or multimode optical fibres, is an active avenue of research. Over the past few decades physicists have discovered fascinating transport properties of classical light in complex media and developed incredibly powerful tools for controlling it. Recently, these findings have been extended to the quantum realm, demonstrating that quantum properties of light can also be controlled while traversing a complex scattering medium. In this Perspective we highlight some of the main developments in this endeavour, as well as their relevance to applications in quantum key distribution, quantum authentication and Boson sampling.

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Fig. 1: Quantum light in disordered samples.
Fig. 2: Quantum wavefront shaping.
Fig. 3: Applications with quantum light in complex media.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank Shlomi Kotler for invaluable assistance in preparing this Perspective. Funding was provided by the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, the ISF-NRF Singapore Joint Research Program (grant no. 3538/20), and the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 2497/21).

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  1. Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Ohad Lib & Yaron Bromberg

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Lib, O., Bromberg, Y. Quantum light in complex media and its applications. Nat. Phys. 18, 986–993 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01692-y

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