Peter Franken was a remarkable man. Immediately after the invention of the laser in 1960, he realized its potentialities for nonlinear effects. His revolutionary paper on second harmonic generation appeared in 1961. It started a revolution in optics, in spite of the fact that some picture editor had removed the spectral spot that was the proof of the effect. Within a few years the experimental field exploded and Bloembergen and collaborators had developed the theory of the new effects to a point that merited his textbook of 1965. Peter Franken turned 70 in 1998 and the traditional Festschrift was prepared. Unfortunately he passed away in 1999, and the book appeared as a dedication to his memory. And a very suitable one it is, because it covers many of the topics he initiated and much of the recent developments following from them. As a long-time friend and colleague, Professor Prokhorov writes the introduction. The book has reviews of topics in nonlinear optics, following their developments up to the late 1990s: Atomic time standards (Ramsay), Femtosecond phenomena at nonlinear optical boundaries (Bloembergen et al ), Nuclear excitation in plasmas (Sobelman) and Raman scattering (Powell and Basiev). Novel fields with strong connections to optics are presented: Quantum interference effects on optical dispersion (Scully et al ), Excitonic features in semiconductor cavities (Gibbs et al ), Nonlinear atom optics (Meystre et al ) and Laser-induced particle emission spectroscopy with atomic resolution (Letokhov). The field mentioned last has been developed by Professor Letokhov in recent years, and I do not know any other place where its methods and potentialities are presented in this detail. The book is a valuable source of information on recent progress in the topics included. It summarizes many important developments of contemporary laser physics. If one wants to get an overview of this research, the book is very valuable. The level of treatment varies a little, from purely descriptive to highly detailed; that is inevitable when many authors are involved. Reading the text requires a certain ability to discern and choose; hence it is no textbook for students. A mature and interested reader, however, can learn much from the book. The most recent developments will, no doubt, become dated, but so much material is central to the field of research that the main part of the text is of lasting value. Groups and individuals working in the area of laser physics will find the volume challenging and useful as a general reference. Here one can look up earlier material and find out its relevance to the most recent progress. Stig Stenholm
Peter Franken was a remarkable man. Immediately after the invention of the laser in 1960, he realized its potentialities for nonlinear effects. His revolutionary paper on second harmonic generation appeared in 1961. It started a revolution in optics, in spite of the fact that some picture editor had removed the spectral spot that was the proof of the effect. Within a few years the experimental field exploded and Bloembergen and collaborators had developed the theory of the new effects to a point that merited his textbook of 1965. Peter Franken turned 70 in 1998 and the traditional Festschrift was prepared. Unfortunately he passed away in 1999, and the book appeared as a dedication to his memory. And a very suitable one it is, because it covers many of the topics he initiated and much of the recent developments following from them. As a long-time friend and colleague, Professor Prokhorov writes the introduction. The book has reviews of topics in nonlinear optics, following their developments up to the late 1990s: Atomic time standards (Ramsay), Femtosecond phenomena at nonlinear optical boundaries (Bloembergen et al ), Nuclear excitation in plasmas (Sobelman) and Raman scattering (Powell and Basiev). Novel fields with strong connections to optics are presented: Quantum interference effects on optical dispersion (Scully et al ), Excitonic features in semiconductor cavities (Gibbs et al ), Nonlinear atom optics (Meystre et al ) and Laser-induced particle emission spectroscopy with atomic resolution (Letokhov). The field mentioned last has been developed by Professor Letokhov in recent years, and I do not know any other place where its methods and potentialities are presented in this detail. The book is a valuable source of information on recent progress in the topics included. It summarizes many important developments of contemporary laser physics. If one wants to get an overview of this research, the book is very valuable. The level of treatment varies a little, from purely descriptive to highly detailed; that is inevitable when many authors are involved. Reading the text requires a certain ability to discern and choose; hence it is no textbook for students. A mature and interested reader, however, can learn much from the book. The most recent developments will, no doubt, become dated, but so much material is central to the field of research that the main part of the text is of lasting value. Groups and individuals working in the area of laser physics will find the volume challenging and useful as a general reference. Here one can look up earlier material and find out its relevance to the most recent progress. Stig Stenholm
Atomic, molecular and optical physics is a field which, during the last few decades, has known spectacular developments in various directions, like nonlinear optics, laser cooling and trapping, quantum degenerate gases, quantum information. Atom–photon interactions play an essential role in these developments. This book presents an introduction to quantum optics which, I am sure, will provide an invaluable help to the students, researchers and engineers who are beginning to work in these fields and who want to become familiar with the basic concepts underlying electromagnetic interactions. Most books dealing with these subjects follow either a semi-classical approach, where the field is treated as a classical field interacting with quantum particles, or a full quantum approach where both systems are quantized. The first approach is often oversimplified and fails to describe correctly new situations that can now be investigated with the development of sophisticated experimental techniques. The second approach is often too difficult for beginners and lacks simple physical pictures, very useful for an initial understanding of a physical phenomenon. The advantage of this book is that it gives both approaches, starting with the first, illustrated by several simple examples, and introducing progressively the second, clearly showing why it is essential for the understanding of certain phenomena. The authors also clearly demonstrate, in the case of non-linear optics and laser cooling, how advantageous it may be to combine both approaches in the analysis of an experimental situation and how one can get from each point of view useful, complementary physical insights.
This textbook provides an accessible introduction to laser physics, exploring three key questions: What is special about laser light? What is the physics underlying its generation? And how can laser light be manipulated and used? The material is presented in a manner that helps the reader develop an understanding of the underlying physics principles and processes without getting bogged down in mathematical details, but there is enough mathematics for the understanding to be quantitative. The book begins by describing the special properties of laser light and focuses on the physics of light-matter interaction to understand how it acquires them. It builds upon Maxwells equations for light and the classical electron oscillator model for the atoms, augmented with a quantum mechanical picture of atomic energy levels, to provide an accurate physical understanding of light-matter interaction. This approach bypasses the need for a course in quantum theory. Derivations of key equations are included not only to help readers follow the development of the subject, but also to illustrate that to approximate, simplify, and get analytic results is integral to understanding any complex phenomenon. Subjects such as nonlinear pulse propagation and nonlinear optics are discussed, but only at a level that should help readers to get started in these fields. The choice of topics has been limited to atomic/molecular lasers to allow for their coverage in one semester-long course. Problems, references and illustrations are included throughout the book, making it an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate physics and engineering students. Students do not require prior knowledge of physics much beyond an undergraduate-level introduction to electromagnetic theory, including Maxwell’s equations, polarization in atomic media and electromagnetic wave propagation. Key features: · Provides a qualitative and quantitative understanding of, and appreciation for, the special properties of laser light · Explores quantum statistics of laser light · Presents an analytical approach to pulse formation
The field of quantum optics has progressed rapidly in the last twenty five years with the advent of the laser. Over much of this period the phenomena studied could be described adequately by semiclassical treatments. Quite recently however, there has been a revival of interest in genuinely quantum mechanical effects. The Malvern Symposium of December 1985 brought together world experts for a meeting which concentrated largely on these quantum effects. The presentations in this unique meeting combine review material with the very latest results and so will be of value to students of quantum optics and measurement theory at all levels. The first articles cover the exciting topic of the generation of squeezed states of light in the laboratory, and their possible uses. Experimental success has been long sought and very recently attained. The reader will find presented the state of the art in this field. Next to lasing itself, optical bistability has been the most widely studied phenomenon in quantum optics, largely for its technological promise. However, it also provides a fundamental system to study quuantum effects. Recent theoretical studies of optical bistability with small numbers of atoms are surveyed. In such situations quantum features such as antibunching become significant, and the articles in this volume should be a guide to those venturing into this challenging area. In other articles discussions of fluctuations from other noise sources and instabilities in optical bistabilty are presented in a clear and interesting way. Perhaps the least classical state on quantum optics is that describing a single photon. Recent experiments which produce such states are reviewed. A theoretical review of the photon together with some new material is given which delves deeply into relativistic quantum field theory in order to describe the concept of weakly localised photon states. The material here is very rarely presented in the context of quantum optics. The history of the theory of the quantum fluctuations in a laser is then reviewed. An off-shoot of this theory is the study of quantum chaos in dissipative systems and recent results in this new area are given in a succeeding article. There are further stimulating articles on Rydberg atom systems and quantum electrodynamics. The volume ends with an entertaining and incisive study of quantum measurement problems, such as the Schrodinger cat papadox, using concepts and measuring devices found in quantum optics.other_titles
This book attempts to bridge the enormous gap between introductory quantum mechanics and the research front of modern optics and scientific fields that make use of light in one step. Hence, while it is suitable as a reference for the specialist in quantum optics, it also targets the nonspecialists from other disciplines who need to understand light and its uses in research. With a unique approach it introduces a single analytic tool, namely the density matrix, to analyze complex optical phenomena encountered in traditional as well as cross‐disciplinary research. It moves swiftly in a tight sequence from elementary to sophisticated topics in quantum optics, including laser tweezers, laser cooling, coherent population transfer, optical magnetism, electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), squeezed light, and cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). A systematic approach is used that starts with the simplest systems – stationary two‐level atoms – then introduces atomic motion, adds more energy levels, and moves on to discuss first‐, second‐, and third‐order coherence effects that are the basis for analyzing new optical phenomena in incompletely characterized systems. Unconventional examples and original problems are used to engage even seasoned researchers in exploring a mathematical methodology with which they can tackle virtually any new problem involving light. An extensive bibliography makes connections with mathematical techniques and subject areas which can extend the benefit of each section to guide readers further. The steady progression from “simple” to “elaborate” makes the book accessible not only to students from traditional subject areas that make use of light (physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, and materials science), but also to researchers from the “hyphenated” subjects of modern science and engineering: the biophysicists using mechanical effects of light, photochemists developing coherent control for rare species detection, biomedical engineers imaging through scattering media, electromechanical engineers working on molecular design of materials for electronics and space, electrical and computer engineers developing schemes for quantum computation, cryptography, frequency references, and so on. To try to identify techniques and ideas that are universal enough to be applied across the bewildering landscape of research on intersecting boundaries of emerging modern disciplines is a great challenge of out time. “Lectures on Light” offers selected insights on quantum dynamics and quantum theory of light for exactly this purpose.
Introduction We have already encountered situations in which light of one frequency falling on an atomic system gives rise to light of different frequencies (cf. Section 15.6). The atom may here be considered to play the role of a (noisy) nonlinear transducer for the incident field. Even stronger nonlinear effects arise when one is dealing with a large number of atoms, or a nonlinear medium . Under these circumstances it is sometimes permissible to ignore the atomic structure and to treat the medium as a continuum, as in Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. The subject of the interaction of the incident field with the nonlinear medium is usually known as nonlinear optics. The subject had its beginnings in an experiment in which a strong beam of red light (wavelength 6943 Å) from a ruby laser was allowed to fall on a quartz crystal, and a faint beam of blue light at a wavelength of 3472 Å, the first harmonic of the red, was produced (Franken, Hill, Peters and Weinreich, 1961). The development of the subject of nonlinear optics into a mature field is due largely to the work of Bloembergen and his collaborators. In the following we shall consider only a few simple illustrative examples of phenomena in nonlinear optics. More topics and more detail can be found in the books by Bloembergen and others (Bloembergen, 1965; Yariv, 1967, Chap. 21; Shen, 1984; Schubert and Wilhelmi, 1986; Butcher and Cotter, 1990; Boyd, 1992).
In the last decade many important advances have taken place in the field of quantum optics, with numerous potential applications. Ideal for graduate courses on quantum optics, this textbook provides an up-to-date account of the basic principles of the subject. Focusing on applications of quantum optics, the textbook covers recent developments such as engineering of quantum states, quantum optics on a chip, nano-mechanical mirrors, quantum entanglement, quantum metrology, spin squeezing, control of decoherence and many other key topics. Readers are guided through the principles of quantum optics and their uses in a wide variety of areas including quantum information science and quantum mechanics. The textbook features end-of-chapter exercises with solutions available for instructors at www.cambridge.org/9781107006409. It is invaluable to both graduate students and researchers in physics and photonics, quantum information science and quantum communications.