The Dutch quantum optics community is quite a strong one, so it has a session devoted to its work at Physics@FOM almost every year. However, over the years, I've started to become a bit cynical about the work—and the work done by much of the rest of the world on the same topic.
When the quantum optics field began, a lot of experimental "gotchas" were swept under the carpet. The results we obtained were not in doubt, but the efficiency was low—days of measurement to get a single data point. Now, as things move forward, researchers are starting to talk about applications—one of the talks was partially titled "Towards the quantum Internet"—meaning that these inefficiencies need to be dealt with. Yet the approach by people in the field seems to be to repeat what has been done before and hope that it all gets better somehow.
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