Spatiotemporal photonic emulator of potential-free Schrödinger equation

Qian Cao; Nianjia Zhang; Andy Chong; Qiwen Zhan

doi:10.1186/s43593-025-00096-8

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Spatiotemporal photonic emulator of potential-free Schrödinger equation

eLight Vol. 5, (2025)

Research Article | Updated：2025-12-17

- Spatiotemporal photonic emulator of potential-free Schrödinger equation
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- DOI：10.1186/s43593-025-00096-8
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- Received：22 February 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-06-19，
  
  Accepted：28 June 2025，
  
  Published Online：07 August 2025，
  
  Published：2025-12
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Qian Cao, Nianjia Zhang, Andy Chong, et al. Spatiotemporal photonic emulator of potential-free Schrödinger equation[J]. eLight, 2025, 5.
DOI：

Qian Cao, Nianjia Zhang, Andy Chong, et al. Spatiotemporal photonic emulator of potential-free Schrödinger equation[J]. eLight, 2025, 5. DOI： 10.1186/s43593-025-00096-8.

摘要

Abstract

Photonic quantum emulator utilizes photons to emulate the quantum physical behavior of a complex quantum system. Recent study in spatiotemporal optics has enriched the toolbox for designing and manipulating complex spatiotemporal optical wavepackets

bringing new opportunities in building such quantum emulators. In this work

we demonstrate a new type of photonic quantum emulator enabled by spatiotemporal localized wavepackets with spherical harmonic symmetry. The spatiotemporal field distribution of these wavepackets has the same distributions of the wavefunction solutions to the potential-free Schrödinger equation with two controllable quantum numbers. A series of such localized wavepackets are experimentally generated with their localized feature verified. These localized wavepackets can propagate invariantly in space–time like particles

forming a new type of photonic quantum emulator that may provide new insight in studying quantum physics and open up new applications in studying light-matter interactions and quantum optics.

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