Physics 568 (ECE 568), Nonlinear Optics

Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 to 12:15 pm, CHTM Room 103

Spring 2026

Instructor

• Jean-Claude Diels
• Physics & Astronomy room PAIS 2236, phone 277 4026
• CHTM, room 114A, phone 272 7830 email: jcdiels@unm.edu

Reference material

Lecture content, followed by a link to the powerpoint file, and homework assignments will be posted on my personal Web site dielslab.unm.edu/courses.

References will be made to textbooks and articles, when appropriate. I follow the notations of the book “Ultrafast Phenomena” of which a link can be found before the first lecture.

Other reference material:

• Robert W. Boyd. Nonlinear optics. Academic Press, third edition, 2008.
• Shen
• Dye last theorist from Castle
• Ultrafast Phenomena

Assignments

• Homework problems will be assigned on a regular base, due generally on Wednesdays. They will count for 50% of the final grade.
• Some problems will be treated in class.
•  Final   Oral presentation and written report on a topic related to the class.  The report should be in the format of Optics letter.  It will be graded as moch for the form as for the content.
•  

THIS COURSE: AN UNCONVENTIONAL APPROACH

 

The approach taken in this class is to proceed from the most general formalism and proceed by successive approximation to specific phenomena. Some of you may have been exposed in high-school to a similar method in your course of analytical geometry. The old school taught only cartesian coordinates, in which circles, ellipses hyperbolae are totally unrelated objects. Going from cartesian to projective coordinates one realizes that circles, ellipses and hyperbolae are just one object. Teaching analytical geometry in particular-izing from the general projective coordinates towards the more narrow minded cartesian gives one a much richer and elegant understanding of geometry.

 

 

In this course, successive approximations from the more general response of the electron in time varying high electric field, to linear optics, is a journey that will bring us through all the aspects of nonlinear optics. The classical situation treated in the first chapter(s) of most nonlinear optics books results from a stationary “weak field” approximation of a more general interaction, with all real atomic level off-resonance with the radiation frequency.

While different aspects of nonlinear optics may be taught in a different order, the material covered will be the same as that of previous nonlinear optics classes.  The last chapter of the class will deal with quantum aspects of nonlinear optics, with a study of solitons, noise in measurements, and squeezing.

 Nearly all problems of linear and nonlinear optics are  treated in a stationary approximation. Ultrashort pulses are bringing the awareness that not all situation can be treated as “steady-state”, the latter being an asymptotic limit of a transient behavior.

CHAPTER 3 OF THE BOOK ULTRAFAST PHENOMENA:

The free Electron

A. Multiphoton ionization {Jumped the fence of St Quentin and ran)

B. Tunnel ionization {Dugged its way out of Guantanamo and waited...)

C. The plasma {Free but with the field marshal in hot pursuit)