Electron interference in mesoscopic devices in the presence of nonclassical electromagnetic fields

The interaction of mesoscopic interference devices with nonclassical electromagnetic fields is studied. The external quantum fields induce a phase factor in the electric charges. This phase factor, which is a generalization of the standard Aharonov-Bohm phase factor, is in the case of nonclassical electromagnetic fields a quantum mechanical operator. Its expectation value depends on the density matrix describing the nonclassical photons and determines the interference. Several examples are discussed, which show that the quantum noise of the nonclassical photons partly destroys the electron interference fringes. An interesting application arises in the context of distant electron interference devices, irradiated with entangled photons. In this case the interfering electrons in the two devices become entangled. The same ideas are applied in the context of SQUID rings irradiated with nonclassical electromagnetic fields. It is shown that the statistics of the Cooper pairs tunnelling through the Josephson junction depends on the statistics of the photons. (phd tutorial)