"Multi-Wave Mixing Processes - From Ultrafast Polarization Beats to Electromagnetically Induced Transparency" discusses the interactions of efficient multi-wave mixing (MWM) processes enhanced by atomic coherence in multilevel atomic systems. It covers topics in five major areas: attosecond and femtosecond polarization beats of four-wave mixing (FWM) processes; heterodyne detection of FWM, six-wave mixing (SWM) and eight-wave mixing (EWM) processes; Raman and Rayleigh enhanced polarization beats; coexistence and interactions of MWM processes via electromagnetically induced transparency(EIT); multi-dressing MWM processes. The book is intended for researchers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Nonlinear Optics. Dr. Yanpeng Zhang is a professor at the Key Laboratory for Physical Electronics and Devices of the Ministry of Education, Xi'an Jiaotong University. Dr. Min Xiao is a professor of Physics at University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, U.S.A.

Multi-wave mixing gives rise to new frequency components due to the interaction of light signals with a suitable nonlinear medium. In this book a systematic framework for the control of these processes is used to lead readers through a plethora of related effects and techniques.

"Coherent Control of Four-Wave Mixing" discusses the frequency, temporal and spatial domain interplays of four-wave mixing (FWM) processes induced by atomic coherence in multi-level atomic systems. It covers topics in five major areas: the ultrafast FWM polarization beats due to interactions between multi-color laser beams and multi-level media; coexisting Raman-Rayleigh-Brillouin-enhanced polarization beats due to color-locking noisy field correlations; FWM processes with different kinds of dual-dressed schemes in ultra-thin, micrometer and long atomic cells; temporal and spatial interference between FWM and six-wave mixing (SWM) signals in multi-level electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) media; spatial displacements and splitting of the probe and generated FWM beams, as well as the observations of gap soliton trains, vortex solitons, and stable multicomponent vector solitons in the FWM signals. The book is intended for scientists, researchers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Nonlinear Optics. Dr. Yanpeng Zhang is a professor and Zhiqiang Nie is a Ph. D. student at the Key Laboratory for Physical Electronics and Devices of the Ministry of Education, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. Dr. Min Xiao is a professor of physics at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, U.S.A.

This monograph collects together papers by leading researchers in the field of photorefractive nonlinear optics. All of the works are presented by eminent researchers in their field and cover topics such as wave mixing in nonlinear optical materials; photorefractive semiconductors; organic photorefractive materials and volume holographic storage.

Photo-Excited Processes, Diagnostics and Applications covers the area of photo-excitation and processing of materials by photons from the basic principles and theories to applications, from IR to x-rays, from gas phase to liquid and solid phases. The various chapters give a wide spectral view of this developing field. Twelve leading groups worldwide set down to write this book during the past two years which include the most updated techniques used in their laboratories for investigating photo-excited processes and new applications. This book will be useful to scientists and engineers who have a strong interest in photo-assisted processes development for microelectronics and photonics.

This book is a self-contained guide to the world of quantum optical processes which addresses different aspects relevant in quantum optics and quantum information. The basic descriptions, measurement techniques, possible sources, nonclassical features, practical implications and applications of the quantization of light and its interaction with matter, are explored. The observed quantum properties such as coherent superposition, entanglement, nonlocality, decoherence and no-cloning, are discussed. The quantum optical processes such as continuous variable entanglement swapping, teleportation and telecloning from which follow the practical aspects such as quantum gate operations, cryptography and error correction are considered. In turn, the advantages and inherent challenges including the foresight in implementing continuous variable quantum communication and computation protocols are highlighted. The author gives a concise background with corresponding applications, the necessary mathematical derivation, simplified examples, illustrations and demonstrations, and the relative interpretations and outlooks. This book is intended to serve a multi-disciplinary readership, namely the atomic physics and quantum optics communities who seek to extend their research to applications, especially, to the field of quantum information processing as well as the theoretical quantum information community who builds up research on physically realizable systems such as optical setups and various atomic schemes. The content of this book also attracts other communities such as photonics who seeks to link research with continuous variable quantum information processing.

Excitons are considered as the basic concept used by describing the spectral properties of photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes and excitation dynamics in photosynthetic light-harvesting antenna and reaction centers. Following the recently obtained structures of a variety of photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes from plants and bacteria our interest in understanding the relation between structure, function and spectroscopy has strongly increased. These data demonstrate a short interpigment distance (of the order of 1 nm or even smaller) and/or a highly symmetric (ring-like) arrangement of pigment molecules in peripheral light-harvesting complexes of photosynthetic bacteria. Books which were devoted to the exciton problem so far mainly considered the spectral properties of molecular crystals. However, the small size of these pigment aggregates in the pigment-protein complexes as well as the role of the protein, which is responsible for the structural arrangement of the complex, clearly will have a dramatic influence on the pigment spectra and exciton dynamics. All these aspects of the problem are considered in this book. Exciton theory is mainly considered for small molecular aggregates (dimers, ring-like structures etc.). Together with the theoretical description of the classical conceptual approach, which mainly deals with polarization properties of the absorption and fluorescence spectra, the nonlinear femtosecond spectroscopy which is widely used for investigations now is also discussed. A large part of the book demonstrates the excitonic effects in a multitude of photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes and how we can understand these properties on the basis of the exciton concept.