Bartolo / Forte Frontiers of Optical Spectroscopy

Investigating Extreme Physical Conditions with Advanced Optical Techniques
2005
ISBN: 978-1-4020-2751-2
Verlag: Springer Netherland
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 168, 756 Seiten, eBook

Reihe: NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry

Advanced spectroscopic techniques allow the probing of very small systems and very fast phenomena, conditions that can be considered "extreme" at the present status of our experimentation and knowledge. Quantum dots, nanocrystals and single molecules are examples of the former and events on the femtosecond scale examples of the latter. The purpose of this book is to examine the realm of phenomena of such extreme type and the techniques that permit their investigations.Each author has developed a coherent section of the programstarting at a somewhat fundamental level and ultimately reaching the frontier of knowledge in the field in a systematic and didactic fashion. The formal lectures are complemented by additional seminars.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bartolo, Baldassare Di

Forte, Ottavio

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Lectures.- Investigating Physical Systems with Optical Spectroscopy.- Light-Matter Interactions on the Femtosecond Time Scale.- Photons and Photon Statistics: From Incandescent Light to Lasers.- Carrier-Wave Nonlinear Optics.- Carotenoid Excited States-Photophysics, Ultrafast Dynamics and Photosynthetic Functions.- Spectroscopy of Quantum Wells and Superlattices.- Lasers for Frontier Spectroscopy.- Coherent Spectroscopy of Stratified Semiconductor Micro- and Nanostructures.- Consequences of Extreme Photon Confinement in Micro- Cavities: I. Ultra-Sensitive Dedection of Perturbations by Bio-Molecules.- Luminescence Properties of Very Small Semiconductor Particles.- An Introduction to the Physics of Ultracold Atomic Gases.- Laser Cooling and Trapping of Neutral Atoms to Ultralow Temperatures.- Ultrafast Structural Dynamics in the Condensed Phase.- Lanthanide Series Spectroscopy Under Extreme Condition.- Excitonic Bose-Einstein Condensation versus Electron-Hole Plasma Formation.- Dynamics of Solid-State Coherent Light Sources.- Some Novel Aspects of Intramolecular Electronic Energy Transfer Processes.- Stimulated Raman Scattering Spectroscopy of Frontier Nonlinear-Laser Materials: Organic Crystals and Nanocrystalline Ceramics.- Interdisciplinary Lecture.- Strange Properties of Quantum Systems and Possible Interpretations.- Long Seminars.- Modulation Spectroscopy Revisited.- Advances in Solid State Lasers at NASA Langley Research Center.- Combinatorial Chemistry to Grow Single Crystals and Analysis of Concentration Quenching Processes: Application To Yb3+-Doped Laser Crystals.- Table-Top Soft X-Ray Lasers and Their Applications.- Rare Earth Ion Doped Ceramic Laser Materials.- Short Seminars.- Posters.

Leseproben

1. INVESTIGATING PHYSICAL SYSTEMS WITH OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY (p. 1)

B. DI BARTOLO
Department of Physics, Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA
Abstract
The article is based on the lectures that I delivered at the beginning of the course "Frontiers of Optical Spectroscopy," a NATO Advanced Study Institute that took place at the Ettore Majorana Center in Erice, Italy, May 16 - June 1, 2003. The purpose of this contribution is to present some background material useful to deal with the application of optical spectroscopy to the study of physical systems. In the introductory lecture we differentiate between two cases of "extreme physical conditions":

i) extreme conditions that predate experimentation, having been produced artificially and objectively different from more common ones, and

ii) extreme conditions created by an experimenter who employs some technical procedure to vary or modify the status of some systems and bring them into conditions different from their natural ones.

In the second lecture we treat the interaction of radiation with atoms and molecules. We introduce the concept of transition rate. In addition, we deal with the optical Bloch equations, the Rabi oscillations, and the mechanisms responsible for the broadening of spectral lines.

1. Introduction
At the beginning of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Frontiers of Optical Spectroscopy - Investigating Extreme Physical Conditions with Advanced Optical Techniques," I thought it was appropriate to present to the participants some considerations regarding the nature and purpose of such conditions. I want to report in this introduction these considerations, incorporating in them some of the input from the audience.

As suggested by a participant, "extreme" is a relative term, and conditions that may seem extreme today may, at a later time, be considered normal. We shall then at this point appraise the situation in terms of today's experimental reality. Extreme physical conditions are sought or prepared for in several human endeavors. An engineer, when building a bridge, will make himself sure that it will withstand much stronger pressure that it is ever likely to experience.

For a scientist extreme physical conditions of a system under study provide an appropriate situation in which the relevance of a certain parameter is enhanced and therefore made more amenable to be studied and understood. Examples that come to mind are the medical observation of patients walking on a treadmill and the study of orthophrenic children.

Claude Bernard (1813-1878) in his treatise on experimental medicine [1] makes a distinction between the observer and the experimenter:

"We give the name of the observer to somebody who applies the procedures of investigation, that may be simple or complex, to the study of phenomena that he does not influence and who collects the data as nature provides them.

We give the name of the experimenter to somebody who employs the procedures of investigation in order to vary or modify in some way the natural phenomena and make them appear in circumstances or conditions that are different from those in which nature will ever present them." In this scheme of things astronomy is a science of observation, because an astronomer cannot act on the celestial bodies and chemistry is a science of experimentation, because chemists act on nature and modify it.