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Introduction

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Optical Precursors

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Physics ((SpringerBriefs in Physics))

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Abstract

The study of precursor could be traced back to 100 years ago, the time when Sommerfeld and Brillouin attempted to explore the propagation speed of a finite pulse. Precursors, generated from sharp rising edges of an optical pulse, therefore verify the speed limit raised by Einstein. As they pointed out, the information velocity never exceed the speed of light in vacuum c. The problem will become much more interesting when single photon source is involved. In this chapter, we would like to introduce the optical precursor in classical wave domain, and extend the discussion to the single-photon domain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Office: Room 4482, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

    Michael M. T. Loy

  2. Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Office: Room 4451, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

    Shengwang Du

  3. Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Dongchuan Road 500, Room 209, Shanghai, People’s Republic of china

    Jiefei Chen

  4. Frontier Research Laboratory, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Yongin-si, Republic of Korea

    Heejeong Jeong

Authors
  1. Jiefei Chen
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  2. Heejeong Jeong
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  3. Michael M. T. Loy
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  4. Shengwang Du
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Correspondence to Jiefei Chen .

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Chen, J., Jeong, H., Loy, M.M.T., Du, S. (2013). Introduction. In: Optical Precursors. SpringerBriefs in Physics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-94-9_1

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