The nonclassical nature of a multi-photon wave packet is a key resource
for overcoming the limitations of the present optical technologies governed
by classical wave optics. Specifically, quantum entanglement of photons,
which is the most striking nonclcassical feature of the multi-photon wave
packet, plays a pivotal role in quantum optical technologies, including
quantum information and communication, quantum imaging and quantum metrology.
One of our goals is to clarify the role of quantum entanglement in light-matter
interactions at the single-photon level. Although there have been some
reports on nonlinear light-matter interactions under extremely weak light
conditions, almost all of these works focus on nonlinear optical phenomena
caused by the differences in photon statistics between classical and nonclassical
lights. However, it is predicted that optical nonlinear effects are sensitive
to the temporal correlations of a multi-photon wave packet in a fully quantum
mechanical treatment of nonlinear light-matter interactions, and that frequency
correlation, or frequency entanglement, strongly affects the temporal correlation
among the constituent photons in a multi-photon wave packet as a result
of Fourier duality.
In order to further develop studies on light-matter interactions at the
single-photon level, we are exploiting novel technologies for controlling
and detecting quantum nature of light.
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