Abstract
Classical optics stimulated and strongly influenced the origin and development of modern physical disciplines, such as theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. However, it was considered to be closed as a classical scientific discipline investigating generation, manipulation and detection of optical radiation until the laser was discovered. The discovery of the laser as a handmade source producing new quality of light permitted to create new fields of physics and optics, such as holography, representing new imaging process conserving phase information owing to the use of a reference beam, nonlinear optics, providing new nonlinear optical phenomena determined by the dependence of quantities of the medium on the incident laser intensity, etc. Many laser applications are available in science and techniques. High coherence and strong intensity (light degeneration, i.e. large mean number of photons present in the coherence volume) of laser light manifest themselves as the most important properties of laser beams.
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Peřina, J., Hradil, Z., Jurčo, B. (1994). Introduction. In: Quantum Optics and Fundamentals of Physics. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 63. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0932-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0932-1_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4402-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-0932-1
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