Experimental realization of Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment

  • Vincent Jacques
  • , E. Wu
  • , Frédéric Grosshans
  • , François Treussart
  • , Philippe Grangier
  • , Alain Aspect
  • , Jean François Roch*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

429 Scopus citations

Abstract

Wave-particle duality is strikingly illustrated by Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment, where the configuration of a two-path interferometer is chosen after a single-photon pulse has entered it: Either the interferometer is closed (that is, the two paths are recombined) and the interference is observed, or the interferometer remains open and the path followed by the photon is measured. We report an almost ideal realization of that gedanken experiment with single photons allowing unambiguous which-way measurements. The choice between open and closed configurations, made by a quantum random number generator, is relativistically separated from the entry of the photon into the interferometer.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)966-968
Number of pages3
JournalScience
Volume315
Issue number5814
DOIs
StatePublished - 16 Feb 2007
Externally publishedYes

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