Quantum optics is the field which describes the interaction between the electromagnetic field and matter (in the broad sense) at low energies. In the last few decades, fuelled up by theoretical ideas coming from information theory and quantum foundations, many novel technologies have appeared which allow us to analyze physical scenarios that were nothing but a dream for the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
In this talk I will introduce the different technologies and applications that I’ve been contributing to ever since I started my PhD at the Quantum and Nonlinear Optics group of the Universitat de València with Germán J. de Valcárcel and Eugenio Roldán, and during the last 4 years at the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics with J. Ignacio Cirac. These include, for example, nonlinear optical devices, ultracold atoms, superconducting circuits, and optomechanical systems, as applied to quantum communication, simulation, computation, and testing possible applicability limits of quantum theory.