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Since its emergence two decades ago, astrophotonics has found broad application in scientific instruments at many institutions worldwide. The case for astrophotonics becomes more compelling as telescopes push for AO-assisted,…
We argue that most advances in science and technology during the past and the present centuries rely on modern physics concepts developed in the early $20$th century. The reliance is so profound that any improvement of literacy of science…
Wave-particle duality is the most fundamental description of the nature of a quantum object which behaves like a classical particle or wave depending on the measurement apparatus. On the other hand, entanglement represents nonclassical…
Intense light-matter interaction largely relies on the use of high-power light sources, creating fields comparable to, or even stronger than, the field keeping the electrons bound in atoms. Under such conditions, the interaction induces…
Understanding of light-matter interaction is a keystone in mastering classical and quantum optics. This paper gives an overview of the fundamental principles used in these two fields for description of light-matter interaction. By exploring…
Feynman gave a famous elementary introduction to quantum theory by discussing the thin-film reflection of light. We make his discussion mathematically rigorous, keeping it elementary, using his other idea. The resulting model leads to…
The ontological status of the quantum wavefunction remains one of the most debated questions in quantum theory. While epistemic interpretations regard the wavefunction as a reflection of our knowledge or beliefs, ontic interpretations treat…
This introductory text on the basics of quantum mechanics is intended to serve as a kind of travel guide through the quantum world. It starts by asking whether quantum physics is important, or weird, or incomprehensible. It explains why…
We describe an extracurricular learning path on waves focused on energy transfer. The advantages of introducing mechanical waves by using the Shive wave machine and laboratory activities are presented. Laboratories are realized by inquiry,…
The observation of the bending of light by mass, now known as gravitational lensing, was key in establishing general relativity as one of the pillars of modern physics. In the past couple of decades, there has been increasing interest in…
Quantum light is considered to be one of the key resources of the coming second quantum revolution expected to give rise to groundbreaking technologies and applications. If the spatio-temporal and polarization structure of modes is known,…
A particular science is not only defined by its object of study, but also by the point of view and method under which it considers that same object. Taking space and time as an illustrative example, our main aim here is to bring out an…
Information processing with light is ubiquitous, from communication, metrology and imaging to computing. When we consider light as a quantum mechanical object, new ways of information processing become possible. In this review I give an…
Interference lies at the heart of the behavior of classical and quantum light. It is thus crucial to understand the boundaries between which interference patterns can be explained by a classical electromagnetic description of light and…
Light is known to exhibit quantum uncertainty in terms of its amplitude, phase, and polarization. However, quantum uncertainty related to coherence, which is also a fundamental physical property of light, has not been considered to date.…
Louis de Broglie's celebrated hypothesis transfers a problem of representation of optics to the quantum theories. Let us suppose that the fact that originated the problem in optics is the following, "The images obtained by optical…
Quantum theory of photons based on the first quantization technique, similar to that used by Schroedinger in the formulation of quantum mechanics, is considered. First, scalar quantum mechanics of photons operating with the photon wave…
Prior research has demonstrated how the realist perspectives of classical physics students can translate into specific beliefs about quantum phenomena when taking an introductory modern physics course. Student beliefs regarding the…
Light carries energy, and therefore, it is the source of a gravitational field. The gravitational field of a beam of light in the short wavelength approximation has been studied by several authors. In this article, we consider light of…
It is well-known that electromagnetic radiation propagates along a straight line, but this common sense was broken by the artificial curved light - Airy beam. In this paper, we demonstrate a new type of curved light beam besides Airy beam,…