ABSTRACT

This entry traces the most important developments in quantum optics and how various developments had important consequences for many other fields, such as nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, optical resonance, quantum theory of the laser, quantum interferometry, cooperative phenomena, quantum electrodynamics, near field optics, Bose condensates, etc. It might be noted that states such as coherent states and the ideas of coherence have been used in areas far beyond the areas for which such concepts were originally developed. For example, the coherence characteristics of a system of atoms or a system of electrons (and even neutrons) have been extensively studied. The entry discusses how many of the concepts in the quantum theory of radiation were put to very precise experimental tests by utilizing the developments in quantum optics.