Main Field of Study and progress level:
Physics: Second cycle, has only first-cycle course/s as entry requirements
Grading scale: Pass with distinction, Pass with merit, Pass, Pass with distinction, Pass, Fail
Responsible department: Department of Physics
Contents
The course starts with a survey of classical properties of light and of interaction between a classical light field and an idealised quantum mechanical system (a two-level atom). The focus of this first part of the course is on basic aspects of light-atom-interaction such as Rabi-oscillations and broadening mechanisms, but it also includes for example Plancks´s radiation law, Einstein coefficients, optical coherence and fluctuations. After this, the classical description is abandoned in favour of a completely quantum mechanical description of the radiation field. This includes for example second quantization of the interaction Hamiltonian and expressions for the intensity operator. Finally, the quantum mechanical description of light is used to again explain coherence, optics in single- and multi-mode cavities, optical amplification and attenuation, scattering of light by atoms and resonance fluorescence.
Required Knowledge
Quantum Mechanics 1, or equivalent.
Literature
Valid from:
2008 week 9
Loudon Rodney The quantum theory of light 3. ed. : Oxford : Oxford Univ. Press : 2000 : ix, 438 s. : ISBN: 0-19-850177-3 (inb.) Search the University Library catalogue
