Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Measurement of Quantum Interference in a Silicon Ring Resonator Photon Source
Published on: April 4, 2017
Quantum Interference between Light Sources Separated by 150 Million Kilometers
Yu-Hao Deng1,2, Hui Wang1,2, Xing Ding1,2
1Shanghai Branch, Department of Modern Physics and National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai 201315, China.
Abstract:
We report an experiment to test quantum interference, entanglement, and nonlocality using two dissimilar photon sources, the Sun and a semiconductor quantum dot on the Earth, which are separated by ∼150 million kilometers. By making the otherwise vastly distinct photons indistinguishable in all degrees of freedom, we observe time-resolved two-photon quantum interference with a raw visibility of 0.796(17), well above the 0.5 classical limit, providing unambiguous evidence of the quantum nature of thermal light. Further, using the photons with no common history, we demonstrate postselected two-photon entanglement with a state fidelity of 0.826(24) and a violation of Bell inequality by 2.20(6). The experiment can be further extended to a larger scale using photons from distant stars and open a new route to quantum optics experiments at an astronomical scale.
Related Concept Videos
12:19Measurement of Quantum Interference in a Silicon Ring Resonator Photon Source
09:23Quantum State Engineering of Light with Continuous-wave Optical Parametric Oscillators
07:56A Photonic System for Generating Unconditional Polarization-Entangled Photons Based on Multiple Quantum Interference
10:32Sample Preparation and Transfer Protocol for In-Vacuum Long-Wavelength Crystallography on Beamline I23 at Diamond Light Source
Quantum Numbers
Interference and Diffraction

