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Fieldoscopy at the Quantum Limit

Quantum Physics 2025-04-18 v1 Optics

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel concept for measuring time-varying electric field transients of petahertz-scale photons down to a single-photon regime. We observe a clear transition from classical to quantum nature of light that agrees with our Monte Carlo model. We reach unprecedented yoctojoule-level sensitivity and a dynamic range exceeding 90 decibels. We utilize this capability to measure time-dependent intrapulse light coherence - a regime inaccessible to conventional, time-averaged spectroscopy. This opens new avenues for quantum information, cryptography, and quantum light-matter interactions on sub-cycle time scales with attosecond precision.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.13121,
  title  = {Fieldoscopy at the Quantum Limit},
  author = {Dmitry A. Zimin and Arjun Ashoka and Florentin Reiter and Akshay Rao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.13121},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T23:02:22.104Z