Optical Spectroscopy And Coherent Physics Annual Report

Aimed at post-doctoral scientists, researchers, and graduate students in physics, this book provides an introduction to optical multidimensional coherent spectroscopy, a relatively new method of studying materials based on using ultrashort light pulses to perform spectroscopy.

This volume contains the lectures and seminars presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Coherence in Spectroscopy and Modern Physics," the seventh course of the International School of Quantum Electronics, affiliated with the "Ettore Majorana" Centre for Scientific Culture, Erice, Sicily. The Institute was held at Villa LePianore (Lucca), Versilia, Italy, July 17-30, 1977. The International School of Quantum Electronics was started in 1970 with the aim of providing instruction for young researchers and advanced students already engaged in the area of quantum electronics or wishing to switch to this area from a different background. From the outset the School has been under the direction of Prof. F. T. Arecchi, then at the University of Pavia, now at the University of Florence, and Dr. D. Roess of Siemens, Munich. Each year the Directors choose a subject of particular interest, alternating fundamental topics with technological ones, and ask colleagues specifically competent in a given area to take the scientific responsibility for that course.

Advanced spectroscopic techniques allow the probing of very small systems and very fast phenomena, conditions that can be considered "extreme" at the present status of our experimentation and knowledge. Quantum dots, nanocrystals and single molecules are examples of the former and events on the femtosecond scale examples of the latter. The purpose of this book is to examine the realm of phenomena of such extreme type and the techniques that permit their investigations. Each author has developed a coherent section of the program starting at a somewhat fundamental level and ultimately reaching the frontier of knowledge in the field in a systematic and didactic fashion. The formal lectures are complemented by additional seminars.

Remarkable recent progress in quantum optics has given rise to extremely precise quantum measurements that are used in the research into the fundamentals of quantum physics, and in different branches of physics such as optical spectroscopy. This progress stimulates new technologies in the field of optical communications, optical computation and information systems. This state-of-the-art volume presents work from a Summer School on Advances in Quantum Optics and Spectroscopy of Solids, held in Ankara, Turkey, in 1995. The various contributions written by leading scientists in the field cover a wide range of subjects in this exciting area of physics, and report new and important results and ideas. Topics dealt with include the interaction of quantum light with trapped atoms and condensed matter; quantum tomography and phase analysis; and many applications of quantum optics from mesoscopic physics to correlation spectroscopy of non-classical states, which are of major importance in understanding the nature of collective excitations in solids. Audience: This book will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers whose work involves quantum optics, solid state spectroscopy and its applications.