Welcome

My main fields of research are theoretical quantum optics and quantum information. Quantum optics is the science of simple quantum systems made of atoms and photons that expose the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics. Quantum optics and quantum information are now turning the purely theoretical curiosities and paradoxes of the early days of quantum mechanics into everyday techniques of laser science, high-precision metrology and of the modern field of quantum communication and quantum computing. The most recent and very promising development is continuous variable quantum information. Secure quantum communication (quantum cryptography), as well as a plethora of other quantum-mechanics-based protocols for information processing and transmission, can be implemented not only with single photons and atoms but also using many-photon quantum states described by continuous quantum variables, typically the amplitude and phase of light beams. With our active contribution, several experimental breakthroughs have been achieved recently demonstrating this concept.

The Quantum Information Theory group at the University of St. Andrews, which I am leading is actively present in the international quantum optics and quantum information community through publications, conference participation and organization, mutual academic visits and the EU Programme activities. We also work in close cooperation with other experimental and theory groups in the School forming an interdisciplinary team under the aegis of the Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (see www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~qoi).