Turning noise into insight: Ultrafast pump-probe phase-randomized tomography
It may sound counterintuitive, but sometimes noise can actually improve a measurement. In the quantum world, the chaotic nature of noise is not just a disturbance, but it carries valuable statistical information about a system’s behavior. Our team has developed a technique that harnesses the intrinsic randomness of light to track quantum fluctuations in materials. By using weak laser pulses with randomized phases, we studied how the statistical properties of photons interacting with vibrations in quartz evolve at ultrafast timescales. This approach provides a new way to explore quantum materials in non-equilibrium states, revealing statistical properties that traditional methods might overlook.