What happens to light when it is trapped in a box? Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics addresses a fascinating question inphysics: what happens to light, and in particular to itsinteraction with matter, when it is trapped inside a box? With theaid of a model-building approach, readers discover the answer tothis question and come to appreciate its important applications incomputing, cryptography, quantum teleportation, andopto-electronics. Instead of taking a traditional approach thatrequires readers to first master a series of seemingly unconnectedmathematical techniques, this book engages the readers' interestand imagination by going straight to the point, introducing themathematics along the way as needed. Appendices are provided forthe additional mathematical theory. Researchers, scientists, and students of modern physics can referto Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics and examine the field thoroughly.Several key topics covered that readers cannot find in any otherquantum optics book include: * Introduction to the problem of the "vacuum catastrophe" and thecosmological constant * Detailed up-to-date account of cavity QED lasers andthresholdless lasing * Examination of cavities with movable walls * First-principles discussion about cavity QED in opencavities * Pedagogical account of microscopic quantization indielectrics Complementing the coverage of the most advanced theory andtechniques, the author provides context by discussing thehistorical evolution of the field and its discoveries. In thatspirit, "recommended reading," provided in each chapter, leadsreaders to both contemporary literature as well as key historicalpapers. Despite being one of many specialties within physics, cavityquantum electrodynamics serves as a window to many of thefundamental issues of physics. Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics willserve as an excellent resource for advanced undergraduate quantummechanics courses as well as for graduate students, researchers,and scientists who need a comprehensive introduction to the field.

This monograph is the first to give a comprehensive account of the theory of semiconductor cavity quantum electrodynamics for such systems in the weak-coupling and strong-coupling regimes. It presents the important concepts, together with relevant, recent experimental results.

Confinement and manipulation of photons using microcavities have triggered intense research interest in both basic and applied physics for more than a decade. Prominent examples are whispering gallery microcavities which confine photons by means of continuous total internal reflection along a curved and smooth surface. The long photon lifetime, strong field confinement, and in-plane emission characteristics make them promising candidates for enhancing light-matter interactions on a chip. In this book, we will introduce different ultra-high-Q whispering gallery microcavities, and focus on their applications in enhancing light-matter interaction, such as ultralow-threshold microlasing, highly sensitive optical biosensing, nonlinear optics, cavity quantum electrodynamics and cavity optomechanics.

Special focus is given to the optical and electronic properties of single quantum dots due to their potential applications in devices operating with single electrons and/or single photons. This includes quantum dots in electric and magnetic fields, cavity-quantum electrodynamics, nonclassical light generation, and coherent optical control of excitons.

The counter-intuitive aspects of quantum physics have been long illustrated by thought experiments, from Einstein's photon box to Schrödinger's cat. These experiments have now become real, with single particles - electrons, atoms, or photons - directly unveiling the strange features of the quantum. State superpositions, entanglement and complementarity define a novel quantum logic which can be harnessed for information processing, raising great hopes for applications. This book describes a class of such thought experiments made real. Juggling with atoms and photons confined in cavities, ions or cold atoms in traps, is here an incentive to shed a new light on the basic concepts of quantum physics. Measurement processes and decoherence at the quantum-classical boundary are highlighted. This volume, which combines theory and experiments, will be of interest to students in quantum physics, teachers seeking illustrations for their lectures and new problem sets, researchers in quantum optics and quantum information.

This monograph is the first to give a comprehensive account of the theory of semiconductor cavity quantum electrodynamics for such systems in the weak-coupling and strong-coupling regimes. It presents the important concepts, together with relevant, recent experimental results.

Quantum electrodynamics (QED), a theory about radiation fields, is the most accurate and widely applicable physical theory currently known. Cavity QED examines what happens to those radiation fields when they are confined to a cavity (a cavity can be thought of as an atomic pot-hole). Confined radiation fields interact quite differently with atoms than unconfined fields. This difference gives cavity QED the potential for some important applications that ordinary QED does not have, such as applications to laser technology, and to the high precision measurement of time and frequency.