Light Wave-Particle Weirdness (6 of 6) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Light Wave-Particle Weirdness (6 of 6)

Caption

Artist's impression of single photons' behavior when passing through an interferometer having a quantum beam-splitter at its output. In the back of the picture, sinusoidal oscillations are observed, indicating single-photon interference, and therefore a wavelike phenomenon. In the front of the picture, no oscillations are observed, which is the signature of particle behavior. Between these two extremes, the single photons' behavior is continuously morphed from wave-like to particle-like, indicating superposition of these two states, and illustrating the inadequacy of a naive wave or particle description of light. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the November 2, 2012, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Florian Kaiser and colleagues at CNRS in Nice, France, was titled, "Entanglement-Enabled Delayed-Choice Experiment."

Credit

Image courtesy of S. Tanzilli, CNRS

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