Proposal for a modified Afshar Experiment with Superconducting Nanowire detector array

The Afshar experiment is a quantum optics experiment that demonstrated the presence of simultaneous complementary wave and particle behaviors of single photons in the same experiment in apparent contridiction to Bohr's Principle of Complementarity. It employed passive elements i.e. thin Nitinol^® wires placed at the minima of the interference pattern in order to indirectly confirm existence of interference by observing the lack of reduction in total flux downstream of the interference pattern where both beams were well-separated. We propose to use superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors at the minima of the interference pattern. By replacing the passive wires in the original Afshar experiment we will directly measure the photon flux at the minima and obtain the visibility of the interference pattern. The advent of new thin-profile semi-transparent detectors allows us to further refine the results of the original experiment and gain a better understanding of the nature of wavefunction evolution in spacetime. We will present the general setup of the experiment and share any results if available. The theoretical analysis of the experiment and implications of the experiment will also be discussed.

* For further information please visit https://afsharlabs.org/