Single Photon Devices
Hamza A. Abudayyeh, Boaz Lubotzky, Ronen Rapaport · 2020
Classically light is treated as an electromagnetic wave, or more precisely, a superposition of many waves each with an amplitude and phase. In reality however, light is composed of tiny indivisible quanta of energy called photons. The oldest of these flavors that humanity has known since its inception is thermal light. Thermal light is formed by random thermal motions of charges in a material. If this material is in thermodynamic equilibrium the radiation is called blackbody radiation and can be described by Planck’s law. Common examples of thermal radiation include sunlight, incandescent bulb emission, infrared radiation emitted by animals, and the cosmic microwave background radiation. Quantum dots are nanometer-sized semiconductor particles whose optical and electronic properties, due to quantum confinement in all three directions, differ from those of larger particles. Color Centers are defects in wide bandgap crystals in which the defect has atom-like energy levels in the bandgap of the material.