Team

In 2001, Al-amri got his MSc in Physics with Distinction from Sussex University, UK. From there, he went on to York University where he got his Ph.D in 2004. In 2011, he joined the National Center for applied physics (NCAP) at King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), where he has been working as a professor.

He was the recipient of Stott prize in Physics for the best PhD thesis in York University (2004), the senior Membership of Optical Society of America (2012), and the CO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo Award Winner (2013). 

Prof. Alamri has established a quantum optics program in Saudi Arabia almost single-handedly in a challenging environment when no such program existed before. Through his efforts, a group at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has emerged with a constant stream of research output published in some of the most prestigious journals.

Prof. Alamri has organized a series of quantum optics conferences in Saudi Arabia. These conferences, attended by some leading figures, have been responsible for introducing quantum optics to Saudi Arabian students and scientists. I have been privileged to be a speaker at several such conferences that were attended by leading scientists from around the world.

He has arranged collaborative programs with institutions in China and USA. Several Ph.D. students from Prof. Alamri’s group are participating in these programs. These collaborative programs are responsible for the establishment of a significant research activity and the potential of a major institute in the field of optics in Saudi Arabia.

Prof. Alamri has been working on different areas of research related to quantum optics and quantum informatics. The research effort has resulted in peer refereed publications, participation in international conferences, and patents. Some of my research work has been highlighted in semi-popular press. Here the focus is on the following FOUR areas of research that forms the center of his research activity during the last few years:

Optical lithography and microscopy: It is well-known that traditional optical lithography is restricted by the Rayleigh limit such that the smallest feature that can be generated is restricted to half the wavelength of the light source. Thus light beams with shorter and shorter wavelength have been applied to print smaller and smaller circuit images. We presented a novel and simple optical lithography scheme for subwavelength lithography based on Rabi oscillations to overcome the diffraction limit. This method is similar to the traditional photolithography but adding a critical step before dissociating the chemical bound of the photoresist. The subwavelength pattern is achieved by inducing the multi-Rabi-oscillation between the ground state and one intermediate state. The work in this area resulted in a number of publications. One of them is a review article in the prestigious series “Advances in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics” 61, 409 (2012) where I was the leading author. The paper [Physical Review Letters 105. 183601 (2010] received an acclaim in the popular press and was highlighted in the American Physical Society publication Physics: Spotlighting Exceptional Research [http://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.183601], the Research Highlights section of Nature Photonics [Vol. 5, January 2011], in an article entitled “LITHOGRAPHY: Lithography beyond the diffraction limit exploits Rabi oscillations” in Laser Focus World (January 2012). A US patent [No. US8541164] for this work is granted.

Quantum teleportation: Quantum teleportation is a basic ingredient in quantum information architectures which allows to transfer quantum states between different parties. A constant challenge is the quest for protocols for the teleportation of high-dimensional entangled states, as they are of relevance in most potential applications of quantum information science. What we managed to achieve is to propose a protocol for the teleportation of arbitrary quantum states of four-dimensional qudits [Phys. Rev. A 82, 022329 (2010)], and then tackle a much harder problem for quantum teleportation of a high-dimensional entangled state through a single quantum channel [J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 45, 095502 (2012)]. The teleportation through a single quantum channel is an important step not least since, in any practical realization, quantum channels between sender and receiver are a limited and costly resource. A paper on this subject [J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 45 095502 (2012)] was highlighted in the IOP LabTalk Research highlights [http://iopscience.iop.org/0953-4075/labtalk-article/49541].

Weak measurement: Entanglement of a system changes due to interactions with the environment. A typical type of interaction is amplitude damping. If we add a detector to monitor the environment and only select the no-damping outcome, this amplitude damping is modified into a weak measurement. We presented a scheme where the entanglement change of a two-qubit state due to amplitude damping or weak measurement can be probabilistically reversed [Phys. Rev. A 82, 052323 (2010). ]. The reversal procedure involves another weak measurement, preceded and followed by bit flips applied to both qubits. We proposed a linear optics scheme for the experimental demonstration of these procedures, and the proof of principle experiment was carried out, see Nature Physics (2011) [http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nphys2178.html]]. Another interesting work is that we proposed a protocol for the reversal of a weak measurement on a qubit and discussed a possible experimental scheme for the state protection in a cavity QED system. The advantage of this work is that one does not require another weak measurement in the reversal process and therefore can be accomplished in a small time. The present scheme is based on repeated applications of Hadamard and CNOT gates. This work was published in [J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 44, 165509 (2011).]. A US patent [No. US8350587] for this work is granted.

Direct counterfactual quantum communication: One of my most recent ground breaking work has been in the development of a new Protocol for Direct Counterfactual Quantum Communication. We start by challenge the longstanding assumption that information transfer requires physical particles to travel between two stations in empty space, Alice and Bob. However, in our recent Physical Review Letters article we proposed a counterfactual protocol for optical communication, where we showed that, by using the “chained” quantum Zeno effect in the ideal limit, information can be transferred without any physical carriers. The paper [Physical Review Letters 110, 170502 (2013)] received an acclaim in the popular press and was highlighted in the Nature [Vol. 497, 9 (2013) ], Nature Middle East ( May 2013),  Physics World (April 2013), and Wall Street Journal (April 2013).

Last but nor least, he is the leading author of a review article in the prestigious Advances in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics on sub-wavelength lithography. Also, co-editing a recent book in optics which was publish ed by Springer under the title “Optics in our time”.