INETP 2026
Chairing a Session on Quantum Light: When Light Becomes Smarter
Today, 18 March 2026, I had the opportunity to chair a very engaging lecture by Dr. Ashok Kumar of IIST Thiruvananthapuram on the topic “Quantum Light for Technology: From Quantum Cryptography to Ultra-Sensitive Sensing.” It was one of those talks that reminds us how modern physics is no longer confined to blackboards alone; it is steadily entering the world of technology.
For many people, light is simply something that helps us see. But today’s lecture showed that light can be much more than that. In quantum optics, light can be prepared in very special forms so that it behaves in a more coordinated and useful way than ordinary light. One simple way to imagine this is to think of normal light as a crowd walking in a busy street, each person moving with small random variations. Quantum light, by contrast, is like a well-trained group moving with hidden coordination.
Instead of accepting noise as an unavoidable weakness, quantum physics teaches us how to reshape and even use noise intelligently.
Dr. Ashok explained how specially engineered light, such as squeezed light and bright twin beams, can help us measure very tiny effects more accurately than ordinary light. A simple analogy is a balloon: if we squeeze it in one direction, it bulges in another. In a similar way, the uncertainty in light can be reduced in one aspect at the expense of another.
He also described how two beams of light can be generated together in such a way that they remain strongly linked, almost like twins who respond together even when viewed separately. Such ideas are important in quantum cryptography, secure communication, and ultra-sensitive sensing.
As chair of the session, I found it especially rewarding because the lecture made a difficult subject feel intuitive. It showed that quantum physics, though subtle, can still be explained through images, patterns, and physical intuition.
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