Abstract
In this chapter we introduce the concept of photons and shortly describe some basic particle-related properties of light. We will illustrate also the importance of dispersion relations for the understanding of particle properties. It should be noted, that we will discuss here the quantum aspects of light on an elementary level only. We will come back to a comprehensive review of photon physics and the area of quantum optics in the second volume of this book.
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Notes
- 1.
For the concept of quasi-particles and quasi-momenta in crystalline solids see Chap. 11.
- 2.
In the SI system the energy unit Joule is given by \(1~\text {J} = 1~\text {N}\,\text {m} = 1~\text {kg}\,\text {m}^{2}/\text {s}^{2} = 1~\text {W}\,\text {s} = 1~\text {V}\,\text {A}\,\text {s}\).
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Problems
Problems
3.1
Calculate the number of photon modes in the visible part of the spectrum (\({\approx } 400\,\text {nm}\lesssim \lambda _{{\text {v}}}\lesssim 800\,\text {nm}\)) in a box of 1Â cm\(^{3}\).
3.2
Calculate the momentum and energy of a photon with \(\lambda _{{\text {vac}}} = 500\,\text {nm}\). At which acceleration voltage has an electron the same momentum?
3.3
Show that the definition \(\varvec{v}_\mathrm{g} =\frac{1}{\hbar }\,\nabla _{\text {k}} E(\varvec{k})\) leads, for massive and massless particles, directly to the relation (quasi-)momentum \(\varvec{p}=\hbar \varvec{k}\).
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Kalt, H., Klingshirn, C.F. (2019). Photons. In: Semiconductor Optics 1. Graduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24152-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24152-0_3
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