Following BQIT, we were joined by over 150 past and present colleagues and students of Professor John Rarity to celebrate his outstanding career and upcoming retirement at the ‘Celebrating 40 years of Quantum optics with John Rarity’ symposium event.

The ‘Rarity Day’ symposium was an inspiring day, filled with talks from collaborators who shared reflections, research, and personal anecdotes highlighting the impact and mentorship of John’s work.

Over 40 years ago John Rarity started counting photons (the fundamental particles of light) and jumped at the chance to play with a novel crystal based source emitting pairs of photons. Initially this led on to experiments testing the rules of quantum mechanics but quickly turned to looking at ways to exploit quantum properties such as particle interference to enhance measurement, communications and computing, eventually leading us to the Quantum Technologies breakthroughs we are developing today.

A huge thank you to all who took part in making it such vibrant and inspiring day. Thanks especially to the BOSS Optica Student Chapter committee for their help on the day, and John for all his work over the last 40 years.