加拿大渥太华大学Vampa, Giulio团队近日研究了量子光控制高次谐波发射中的光子聚束。该研究于2025年5月13日发表在《自然—光子学》杂志上。

阿秒光谱学包括使用电子和光子探测物质的几种技术。阿秒方法的一个前沿是揭示物质系统、光子场及其相互之间量子力学相关性引起的复杂现象。最近的理论为理解量子光学特性如何影响高场光子学奠定了基础，例如强场电离和量子光场中电子的加速，以及相互作用过程中场模之间的纠缠是如何产生的。 

研究组展示了一种新的实验方法，通过强场非线性来转换量子光学态的一些性质。他们用明亮的压缩真空场扰动半导体的高次谐波发射，导致高次谐波的边带发射具有超泊松统计，表明发射的光子是聚集的。该结果表明，用量子光学态扰动强场动力学是相干控制短波长（如极紫外或软X射线）下这些态产生的可行方法。量子关联将有助于将阿秒光谱和成像技术推进到经典极限之外。

附：英文原文

Title: Photon bunching in high-harmonic emission controlled by quantum light

Author: Lemieux, Samuel, Jalil, Sohail A., Purschke, David N., Boroumand, Neda, Hammond, T. J., Villeneuve, David, Naumov, Andrei, Brabec, Thomas, Vampa, Giulio

Issue&Volume: 2025-05-13

Abstract: Attosecond spectroscopy comprises several techniques to probe matter using electrons and photons. One frontier of attosecond methods is to reveal complex phenomena arising from quantum-mechanical correlations in the matter system, in the photon fields and among them. Recent theories have laid the groundwork for understanding how quantum-optical properties affect high-field photonics, such as strong-field ionization and acceleration of electrons in quantum-optical fields, and how entanglement between the field modes arises during the interaction. Here we demonstrate a new experimental approach that transduces some properties of a quantum-optical state through a strong-field nonlinearity. We perturb high-harmonic emission from a semiconductor with a bright squeezed vacuum field, resulting in the emission of sidebands of the high harmonics with super-Poissonian statistics, indicating that the emitted photons are bunched. Our results suggest that perturbing strong-field dynamics with quantum-optical states is a viable way to coherently control the generation of these states at short wavelengths, such as extreme ultraviolet or soft X-rays. Quantum correlations will be instrumental to advance attosecond spectroscopy and imaging beyond the classical limits.

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01673-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-025-01673-6