FUNDAMENTALS OF LASER PHYSICS

This book is intended as a textbook on laser physics for advanced undergraduates and first-year graduate students in physics and engineering who need to use lasers in their labs and want to understand the physical processes involved with the laser techniques in their fields of study. This book aims to provide a coherent theoretical framework on the light–matter interaction involved with lasers in such a way that students can easily understand the essential topics related to lasers and their applications and get accustomed to the latest cutting-edge research developments. Most of all, the content of this book is concise to be covered in a semester.

Contents:

• Classical Theory of Emission and Absorption
• Einstein's Theory of Matter–Field Interaction
• Semiclassical Theory of Atom–Field Interaction
• Spectral Line Broadening
• Lamb-Dip Spectroscopy
• Optical Bloch Equation
• More Applications of Bloch Equation
• Rate Equation Approximation
• Coherent Pulse Propagation
• Quantum Theory of Laser
• Strong-Coupling Regime of Cavity QED
• Survey of Various Lasers
• Pulsed Lasers and Frequency Combs
• Other Laser-Related Topics
• Single-Photon Sources and Novel Lasers
• Non-Hermitian Laser
• Exceptional-Point Lasers

Readership: Advanced undergraduates and first-year graduate students in physics and engineering who need to use lasers in their labs.

'Laser is one of the pillars of the modern technological world, and there are wide spectrum of books on it from fundamental principles to specific engineering aspects. As the title suggests, Fundamentals of Laser Physics by Professor Kyungwon An approaches the topic from quantum mechanical understanding of the basic interactions between light and atoms. The author is a world expert in both theoretical and experimental study of atom-photon interaction, broadly known as atomic, molecular, and optical physics. The book is intended as a graduate-level textbook on laser physics. The book has a few interesting pedagogical tools, namely, the Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers), which not only elucidates some of the confusing concepts but also induces more thinking for deeper understanding, and the Computer Codes to allow visualization of dynamics of a fundamental system using a few lines of codes. In addition, critical formulae are derived step by step, and solutions of the Exercise problems are given at the end of the book. These features should be very helpful for a graduate student or a beginning researcher in AMO physics, who does not have a chance to attend a formal lecture on laser physics.' [Read Full Review] - Prof Donghyun ChoDepartment of PhysicsKorea University, Seoul

Key Features:

• Considering the rapid development in laser-related fields, this textbook covers not only the basic materials but also the latest advances in laser physics with discussions on experimental results on various laser-related phenomena based on a coherent theoretical framework
• This textbook covers enough amount of essentials but is concise enough to be covered in one semester
• This book provides a coherent theoretical framework from the beginning to the end so that students can move on to the next subjects with ease once having mastered the preceding materials