an international effort to quantify wave-particle duality in photons that originated with a texas a&m university scientist in 2020 has been honored as a physics world top 10 breakthrough of 2021 the institute for basic science in south koreas tai hyun yoon and minhaeng cho and the stevens institute of technologys xiaofeng qian were cited by the internationally renowned iop publishing journal along with texas a&m physicist girish s agarwal for an intriguing combination of experimental and theoretical work that quantified the wave-ness and particle-ness of a photon and also demonstrated that both properties are related to the purity of the photon source according to a physics world press release yoon and cho were able to tightly control the quantum state of pairs of photons a signal and an idler emitted by two crystals of lithium niobate by independently altering the chances that each crystal would emit photons they showed that this so-called source purity is related to the visibility of interference fringes (a wave-like property) and path distinguishability (a particle-like property) by a simple mathematical expression that was first articulated by qian and agarwal in 2020 the result has applications in quantum information and puts a new twist on interpretations of complementarity an idea first articulated by 20th century quantum pioneer niels bohr positing that quantum objects sometimes behave like waves and at other times like particles this was a great achievement that they could produce a single photon state where all the parameters were at their control agarwal said about yoon and chos experiments which were first published in science advances last august the teams pioneering work earned selection as one of the top 10 finalists for the physics world 2021 breakthrough of the year unveiled in a december 14 announcement issued by the journal as quantum entanglement of two macroscopic objects the 10 research projects were chosen by five physics world editors from a list of nearly 600 research updates published on the website this year girish agarwal and his associates apply quantum science to improve microscopy and spectroscopy ushering in a life-science resolution revolution said texas a&m distinguished professor of physics dr marlan o scully a longtime colleague of agarwals who helped to recruit him to texas a&m five years ago agarwal joined the texas a&m faculty in september 2016 as a professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering and the department of physics and astronomy and a member of the institute for quantum science and engineering he was one of the 10 initial faculty including five at texas a&m recruited to the state of texas through the governors university research initiative prior to coming to texas a&m agarwal served as the noble foundation chair and a regents professor at oklahoma state university where he was recognized with the eminent faculty award in 2012 his research spans both the theoretical and experimental realms of quantum optics in particular the interaction of laser light with atoms and development of bio-photonics technologies and applications to identify and detect chemical compounds and pathogens at a distance in addition to being a globally recognized leader in quantum optics agarwal also has made major contributions to the fields of nonlinear optics nanophotonics and plasmonics his 2013 textbook quantum optics covers a wide range of recent developments in the field and has been well received by the community agarwal is a fellow of the royal society (2008) world academy of sciences (1997) optical society of america (1986) and american physical society (1981) as well as the national academy of sciences india allahabad (1988) indian national science academy new delhi (1985) and indian academy of sciences bangalore (1981) in addition he is an honorary fellow of the indian association for cultivation of science kolkata (2008) his many career awards include the humboldt research award (1997) the optical and quantum electronics societys einstein medal (1994) the third world academy of sciences prize in physics (1994) the osas max-born award (1988) and the government of indias shanti swaroop bhatnagar award in physical sciences (1982) learn more about the physics world 2021 breakthrough of the year as well as the 10 finalists all of which are discussed in the december 9 edition of the physics world weekly podcast # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including science and technology research conducted at texas a&m generated annual expenditures of more than $1131 billion in fiscal year 2020 texas a&m ranked in the top 25 of the most recent national science foundation higher education research and development survey based on expenditures of more than $952 million in fiscal year 2019 texas a&ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit research@texas a&m -atm- contact: shana k hutchins (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu or dr girish s agarwal (979) 458-7939 or girishagarwal@tamuedu the post texas a&m physicist among finalists for physics world 2021 breakthrough of the year appeared first on texas a&m college of science share: