Since the advent of optical communications, a greattechnological effort has been devoted to the exploitation of the huge bandwidth of optical fibers. Sta- ing from a few Mb/s single channel systems, a fast and constant technological development has led to the actual 10 Gb/s per channel dense wavelength - vision multiplexing (DWDM) systems, with dozens of channels on a single fiber. Transmitters and receivers are now ready for 40 Gb/s, whereas hundreds of channels can be simultaneously amplified by optical amplifiers. Nevertheless, despite such a pace in technological progress, optical c- munications are still in a primitive stage if compared, for instance, to radio communications: the widely spread on-off keying (OOK) modulation format is equivalent to the rough amplitude modulation (AM) format, whereas the DWDM technique is nothing more than the optical version of the frequency - vision multiplexing (FDM) technique. Moreover, adaptive equalization, ch- nel coding or maximum likelihood detection are still considered something “exotic” in the optical world. This is mainly due to the favourable char- teristics of the fiber optic channel (large bandwidth, low attenuation, channel stability, …), which so far allowed us to use very simple transmission and detection techniques.

Low-dimensional semiconductors have become a vital part of today's semiconductor physics, and excitons in these systems are ideal objects that bring textbook quantum mechanics to life. Furthermore, their theoretical understanding is important for experiments and optoelectronic devices. The author develops the effective-mass theory of excitons in low-dimensional semiconductors and describes numerical methods for calculating the optical absorption including Coulomb interaction, geometry, and external fields. The theory is applied to Fano resonances in low-dimensional semiconductors and the Zener breakdown in superlattices. Comparing theoretical results with experiments, the book is essentially self-contained; it is a hands-on approach with detailed derivations, worked examples, illustrative figures, and computer programs. The book is clearly structured and will be valuable as an advanced-level self-study or course book for graduate students, lecturers, and researchers.

This book is devoted to the spectral theory of localized resonances including surface plasmon/polariton resonances, atypical resonances, anomalous localized resonances and interior transmission resonances. Those resonance phenomena arise in different physical contexts, but share similar features. They form the fundamental basis for many cutting-edge technologies and applications including invisibility cloaking and super-resolution imaging. The book presents a systematic and comprehensive treatment on these resonance phenomena and the associated applications in a unified manner from a mathematical and spectral perspective, covering acoustic, electromagnetic and elastic wave scattering.

This book presents various design theories and methodologies for silicon-based high-sensitivity broadband receivers, including millimeter-wave radiometer chips and photoelectric receivers, which are core elements in imaging systems, data centers, and telecommunication infrastructures. As a key module in application systems, the high-sensitivity broadband receiver, not only attracts the attention of engineers and researchers in the radio-frequency and optoelectronic fields, but also garners significant interest from other disciplines, including optics, communications, and security.

With its many beautiful colour pictures, this book gives fascinating insights into the unusual forms and behaviour of matter under extremely high pressures and temperatures. These extreme states are generated, among other things, by strong shock, detonation and electric explosion waves, dense laser beams, electron and ion beams, hypersonic entry of spacecraft into dense atmospheres of planets, and in many other situations characterized by extremely high pressures and temperatures.

This thesis covers the few-cycle laser-driven acceleration of electrons in a laser-generated plasma. This process, known as laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA), relies on strongly driven plasma waves for the generation of accelerating gradients in the vicinity of several 100 GV/m, a value four orders of magnitude larger than that attainable by conventional accelerators. This thesis demonstrates that laser pulses with an ultrashort duration of 8 fs and a peak power of 6 TW allow the production of electron energies up to 50 MeV via LWFA. The special properties of laser accelerated electron pulses, namely the ultrashort pulse duration, the high brilliance, and the high charge density, open up new possibilities in many applications of these electron beams.

This book deals with quantum physical calculations of anomalous scattering of photons by bound electrons. The main attention is paid to studies of the process of photon scattering in the energy range of deep levels of such many-electron systems as atoms, atomic ions and simple molecules. The book is written for scientists and graduate students, working in the field of atomic and molecular spectroscopy, physics of plasmas, lasers, solid state, ionizing radiation and astrophysics. It can also be used as additional textbook for a special topic of quantum mechanics.

This book intended as a guide for scientists and students who have just discovered the field as a new and attractive area of research, and for scientists who have worked in another field and want to join now the subject of laser plasmas. In the first chapter the plasma dynamics is described phenomenologically by a two fluid model and similarity relations from dimensional analysis. Chapter 2 is devoted to plasma optics and collisional absorption in the dielectric and ballistic model. Linear resonance absorption at the plasma frequency and its mild nonlinearities as well as the self-quenching of high amplitude electron plasma waves by wave breaking are discussed in Chapter 3. With increasing laser intensity the plasma dynamics is dominated by radiation pressure, at resonance producing all kinds of parametric instabilities and out of resonance leading to density steps, self-focusing and filamentation, described in Chapters 4 and 5. A self-contained treatment of field ionization of atoms and related phenomena are found in Chapter 6. The extension of laser interaction to the relativistic electron acceleration as well as the physics of collisionless absorption are the subject of Chapter 7. Throughout the book the main emphasis is on the various basic phenomena and on their underlying physics.

This book attempts to give a discussion of the physics and current and potential applications of the self-focusing of an intense femtosecond laser pulse in a tra- parent medium. Although self-focusing is an old subject of nonlinear optics, the consequence of self-focusing of intense femtosecond laser pulses is totally new and unexpected. Thus, new phenomena are observed, such as long range lam- tation, intensity clamping, white light laser pulse, self-spatial ltering, self-group phase locking, self-pulse compression, clean nonlinear uorescence, and so on. Long range propagation at high intensity, which is seemingly against the law of diffraction, is probably one of the most exciting consequences of this new sub- eld of nonlinear optics. Because the intensity inside the lament core is high, new ways of doing nonlinear optics inside the lament become possible. We call this lamentation nonlinear optics. We shall describe the generation of pulses at other wavelengths in the visible and ultraviolet (UV) starting from the near infrared pump pulse at 800 nm through four-wave-mixing and third harmonic generation, all in gases. Remotely sensing uorescence from the fragments of chemical and biological agents in all forms, gaseous, aerosol or solid, inside the laments in air is demonstrated in the labo- tory. The results will be shown in the last part of the book. Through analyzing the uorescence of gas molecules inside the lament, an unexpected physical process pertaining to the interaction of synchrotron radiation with molecules is observed.

The recent developement of high power lasers, delivering femtosecond pulses of 20 2 intensities up to 10 W/cm , has led to the discovery of new phenomena in laser interactions with matter. At these enormous laser intensities, atoms, and molecules are exposed to extreme conditions and new phenomena occur, such as the very rapid multi photon ionization of atomic systems, the emission by these systems of very high order harmonics of the exciting laser light, the Coulomb explosion of molecules, and the acceleration of electrons close to the velocity of light. These phenomena generate new behaviour of bulk matter in intense laser fields, with great potential for wide ranging applications which include the study of ultra-fast processes, the development of high-frequency lasers, and the investigation of the properties of plasmas and condensed matter under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. In particular, the concept of the "fast ignitor" approach to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) has been proposed, which is based on the separation of the compression and the ignition phases in laser-driven ICF. The aim of this course on "Atom, Solids and Plasmas in Super-Intense Laser fields" was to bring together senior researchers and students in atomic and molecular physics, laser physics, condensed matter and plasma physics, in order to review recent developments in high-intensity laser-matter interactions. The course was held at the Ettore Majorana International Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice from July 8 to July 14,2000.

The first edition of this book was written in 1961 when I was Morris Loeb Lecturer in Physics at Harvard. In the preface I wrote: "The problem faced by a beginner today is enormous. If he attempts to read a current article, he often finds that the first paragraph refers to an earlier paper on which the whole article is based, and with which the author naturally assumes familiarity. That reference in turn is based on another, so the hapless student finds himself in a seemingly endless retreat. I have felt that graduate students or others beginning research in magnetic resonance needed a book which really went into the details of calculations, yet was aimed at the beginner rather than the expert. " The original goal was to treat only those topics that are essential to an understanding of the literature. Thus the goal was to be selective rather than comprehensive. With the passage of time, important new concepts were becoming so all-pervasive that I felt the need to add them. That led to the second edition, which Dr. Lotsch, Physics Editor of Springer-Verlag, encouraged me to write and which helped launch the Springer Series in Solid-State Sciences. Now, ten years later, that book (and its 1980 revised printing) is no longer available. Meanwhile, workers in magnetic resonance have continued to develop startling new insights.

Electron energy loss spectroscopy (ELS) is a vast subject with a long and honorable history. The problem of stopping power for high energy particles interested the earliest pioneers of quantum mechanics such as Bohr and Bethe, who laid the theoretical foun­ dations of the subject. The experimental origins might perhaps be traced to the original Franck-Hertz experiment. The modern field includes topics as diverse as low energy reflection electron energy loss studies of surface vibrational modes, the spectroscopy of gases and the modern theory of plasmon excitation in crystals. For the study of ELS in electron microscopy, several historically distinct areas of physics are relevant, including the theory of the Debye­ Waller factor for virtual inelastic scattering, the use of complex optical potentials, lattice dynamics for crystalline specimens and the theory of atomic ionisation for isolated atoms. However the field of electron energy loss spectroscopy contains few useful texts which can be recommended for students. With the recent appearance of Raether's and Egerton's hooks (see text for references), we have for the first time both a comprehensive review text-due to Raether-and a lucid introductory text which emphasizes experimental aspects-due to Egerton. Raether's text tends to emphasize the recent work on surface plasmons, while the strength of Egerton's book is its treatment of inner shell excitations for microanalysis, based on the use of atomic wavefunctions for crystal electrons.

A thorough knowledge of the physics of atoms and quanta is clearly a must for every student of physics but also for students of neighbouring disciplines such as chemistry and electrical engineering. What these students especially need is a coherent presenta­ tion of both the experimental and the theoretical aspects of atomic and quantum physics. Indeed, this field could evolve only through the intimate interaction between ingenious experiments and an equally ingenious development of bold new ideas. It is well known that the study of the microworld of atoms caused a revolution of physical thought, and fundamental ideas of classical physics, such as those on measur­ ability, had to be abandoned. But atomic and quantum physics is not only a fascinating field with respect to the development of far-reaching new physical ideas.

This book provides readers with a collection of selected articles contributed by leading experts around the world, covering recent advances in fabrication and investigation of nanoengineered materials, thin films and colloids in application to key emerging industrial sectors. The readers are exposed to a variety of concepts ranging from fundamental to applied, addressing different application sectors including sensing, imaging, energy generation, energy storage and forensics. In addition to key enabling concepts and technologies of interest to broad range of nanomaterials, the contributions emphasize semiconductor nanostructures and devices, reflecting their continuing interest to academia and industry.

This book presents a new approach to understanding the foundation of quantum physics through the "quantum wave model" hypothesis. It addresses some of the key challenges in the current quantum theory, including the conflict between quantum mechanics and relativity, and offers a comprehensive solution to many of the existing mysteries in the field. By proposing that the vacuum is a dielectric medium and quantum particles are quantized excitation waves of the vacuum, the book provides a clear physical interpretation of wave-particle duality and explains the physical basis of energy, momentum, and mass.