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Today, the nature of light is accounted for by one of the jewels of physics,quantum electrodynamics (QED), the fundamental theory of light and matter. Yetowing to its infinite complexity, scientists still debate how its centralconcept, the photon, can be reconciled with the perceived existence of lightwaves, emerging 200 years ago in the wake of Young's double slit diffractionexperiment. Ever since, the phenomenon of diffraction has been viewed to embodythe wave nature of light, leading to the schizophrenic wave-particle duality.The latter does not exist in QED which is photon based without the existence ofwaves. Here we introduce the new paradigm that diffraction images directlyreflect the fundamental quantum states of light. This is revealed by analysisof the evolution of modern versions of Young's experiment performed withdifferently modified laser light and photon-based detection. In conventionalquantum mechanics, corresponding to first order QED, the fundamental photonnature of light remains hidden since different quantum states produce only twobasic types of diffraction patterns that may also be explained by coherent andincoherent wave superposition. The true photon based substructure of light isshown to clearly emerge through characteristic diffraction images in secondorder QED. The degeneracy of the first order images is lifted, thewave-particle equivalence breaks down, and the patterns directly reveal thetrue quantum substructure of light. This allows the replacement of theconventional concept of wave coherence by a precise order-dependent degree ofcoherence that quantifies the interference and diffraction behavior of allquantum states of light.

Diffraction without Waves: Emergence of the Quantum Substructure of Light