An Introduction to Quantum Optics

Preface

This book is a selected collection of my lecture notes on quantum optics for my PhD thesis students and for an introductory-level graduate course at the University of Maryland.

My students and colleagues encouraged me to publish these lecture notes as a textbook or reference book that might be helpful in understanding the quantum theory of light from a relatively elementary, introductory level. The successful introduction of the concept of photon, or quantum of light, stimulated a new foundation of physics, namely, quantum theory. Today, quantum theory has turned out to be the overarching principle of modern physics. A quotation from John Archibald Wheeler: “It would be difficult to find a single subject among the physical sciences that ...