Many phenomena that we take for granted in the macroscopic world, like sun rays shining on dust particles suspended in air, or our image reflected in a mirror, become more complicated when we move to the quantum world. When instead of an intense and diffuse light beam we have a single photon, and when we want to shine it not anymore on a dust particle but on an Angstrom-sized object, things are not so straightforward. However, enhancing and exploiting the interaction between atomic-like quantum systems and single photons is a crucial task for quantum technologies: it allows to connect platforms that realise different quantum tasks, which enables long distance transmission of quantum information and, ultimately, makes a quantum internet possible. Read more