Special Solid State and Optics Seminar

Friday, April 7, 2006

1:00 p.m.

220 Dunham Lab

"From Einstein intuition to Quantum Bits: The amazing properties of entangled photons"

Prof. Alain Aspect,
Institut d'Optique, Orsay University,
France

Distinguished Lecturer in Quantum Information Physics

Abstract

In 1935, Albert Einstein discovered an amazing property of quantum mechanics, entanglement, which seemed to conflict with his local realist world view, unless one admits that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory. This lead to a hot debate with Niels Bohr, settled only after the death of the two giants, with the discovery by John Bell of the inequalities named after him, and the experiments stimulated by Bell‚s breakthrough.

We know nowadays that even at a separation of tens of kilometers, two entangled photons keep the extraordinary behavior that Einstein had pointed out. This is an important fact for our understanding of the world, but moreover it has become a new tool allowing the development of the new field of quantum information.

Host: Michel Devoret