Photon Blockade

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Springer Theses book series (Springer Theses)

Abstract

In the preceeding chapters the laser field has been treated in the semi-classical approximation, where the electric field is represented by \(\varvec{E}=\varvec{E}_0\cos (\omega t)\). This assumption is adequate for considering the interaction between strong laser fields with macroscopic ensembles of independent atoms, as in this limit the quantum description of the light-field is indistinguishable from the classical treatment, for reasons that will be discussed below. However, in order to exploit the effect of the cooperative non-linearity at the single-photon level it is necessary to consider the quantised electromagnetic field, without which the concept of a photon becomes meaningless. Importantly, in quantum optics it is not the amplitude of the electric field, but rather the temporal and spatial correlations of the field that reveal the non-classical nature of light. Before considering the cooperative effect, it is necessary to first outline some fundamental ideas of the quantised field.

Keywords

Coherent State Optical Depth Probe Beam Photon Number Dipole Trap 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Durham UniversityDurhamUK

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