photon number

A team of JQI researchers and their colleagues have won in the quantum category of the UMD Invention of the Year Award. They are honored for developing a new method for counting particles of light—photons—without destroying them.

From NIST-PML — Precise measurements of optical power enable activities from fiber-optic communications to laser manufacturing and biomedical imaging — anything requiring a reliable source of light. This situation calls for light-measuring (radiometric) standards that can operate over a wide range of power levels.
Currently, however, different methods for calibrating optical power measurements are required for different light levels. At high levels, existing radiometric standards employ analog detectors, diodes that generate a current proportional to the incident light intensity, but become imprecise at low levels. Low-power detectors, by contrast, very accurately measure discrete (usually very small) numbers of photons, but cannot handle light at higher levels. Because of the incommensurate scales and incompatible technologies, comparison between the two kinds of measurements isn't easy, resulting in long calibration chains to span the difference.
Linking standards for widely different powers requires extending the dynamic range of detection to cover the region between the two measurement regimes. There are two options for bridging this gap: a "top-down" approach using analog detectors and a "bottom-up" method that starts with counting individual photons.
Exploring the second option, a team of scientists from NIST's Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) has demonstrated a technique for extending the range of photon-counting detectors by employing optical attenuators, devices that block controlled fractions of incoming light. The results, recently published in Optics Express, could lead to improved standards to cover a much wider range of optical power.

We want data.  Lots of it.  We want it now.  We want it to be cheap and accurate.

 Researchers try to meet the inexorable demands made on the telecommunications grid by improving various components.  In October 2014, for instance, scientists at the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands did their part by setting a new record for transmission down a single optical fiber: 255 terabits per second. 

At low light, cats see better than humans. Electronic detectors do even better, but eventually they too become more prone to errors at very low light. The fundamental probabilistic nature of light makes it impossible to perfectly distinguish light from dark at very low intensity.  However, by using quantum mechanics, one can find measurement schemes that can, at least for part of the time, perform measurements which are free of errors, even when the light intensity is very low.