Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-138). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-208). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-121). Also available in electronic version.

Magnesium sulfide activated with europium and samarium is a candidate phosphor for laser stimulated personnel dosimeters. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimeters are advantageous in that they provide a faster, isothermal dose measurement than conventional thermoluminescent dosimeters. The effects of activator concentration and chemical substituents are examined in order to increase OSL intensity, improve the OSL emission wavelength and to increase the chemical stability of the MgS lattice. In addition, UV photoluminescence and thermoluminescence of the MgS:Eu:Sm phosphor was investigated to improve the understanding of the optical processes in MgS:Eu:Sm phosphors. / Master of Science

The electronic bandstructure of solids near room temperature has been successfully explored with previous versions of modulation spectroscopy. Modulation of parameters which enter into the bandstructure produce a dielectric function variation. This changes the optical observables, such as reflectance or absorptance. Modulation resonances are observed near singularities in the joint density-of-states function. These resonances must also be detectable in the emittance, an observable which also depends on the dielectric function. Thus, this work investigates the possibility of detection of optical resonances riding on the temperature derivative of the blackbody emission from a solid at high temperature. The modulated emittance was separated from the thermal background by a detection scheme utilizing a CCD and computer. The resonances were not observed because of excessive CCD noise. The existance and magnitude of the resonances was based upon results from other modulation spectroscopies.

Coherent transient effects are the optical analogs of the many transient phenomena seen in pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance experiments on spin systems. For example, photon-echo and optical nutation are the respective optical equivalents of spin echo and transient nutation of nuclear magnetic resonance. In Stark-switching and frequency-switching techniques the laser field and the molecules are brought into resonance in a sequence of pulses, the rest of the time they remain well off-resonance. So far it has been assumed that the off-resonance field does not have any measureable influence on the experimental results and is utilized to implement a very efficient detection scheme. This work discusses how the off-resonance field affects the coherent transient effects. It is shown here how this field, by inducing changes in the index of refraction as small as 10⁻⁶ produces easily observable effects in photon echo and delayed optical nutation.

Yung Man Hong = 受歐姆阻尼振子和光學系統內的彼德曼因數及費曼圖展開 / 翁文康. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-99). / Text in English; abstracts in English and Chinese. / Yung Man Hong = Shou ou mu zu ni zhen zi he guang xue xi tong nei de Bideman yin shu ji Feiman tu zhan kai / Weng Wenkang. / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Chapter 1 --- Overview --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- The Langevin Equation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Excess Noise in Lasers --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Non-orthogonality --- p.9 / Chapter 2 --- Bilinear Map and Eigenvector Expansion --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Mathematical Formalism --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3 --- Criticality and Divergence --- p.19 / Chapter 2.4 --- Perturbations and Cancellations --- p.25 / Chapter 3 --- Generalized Petermann Factor --- p.34 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.34 / Chapter 3.2 --- Petermann Factor in Optical Systems --- p.36 / Chapter 3.3 --- Generalized Petermann Factor --- p.41 / Chapter 3.4 --- Thermal Correlation Functions --- p.43 / Chapter 3.5 --- Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem --- p.46 / Chapter 3.6 --- Weak Damping versus Near-Degeneracy --- p.49 / Chapter 4 --- Continuum Generalization --- p.56 / Chapter 4.1 --- Bilinear map --- p.56 / Chapter 4.2 --- Critical Points --- p.58 / Chapter 4.3 --- Semiclassical Laser Theory --- p.63 / Chapter 5 --- Diagrammatic Expansions --- p.71 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.71 / Chapter 5.2 --- Nonlinearly Coupled Oscillators --- p.72 / Chapter 5.3 --- Path Integral Method --- p.76 / Chapter 5.4 --- Feynman Diagram --- p.81 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.87 / Chapter A --- Derivation of the Langevin equation --- p.89

Semiconductor quantum dots tightly confine excited electron-hole pairs, called excitons, resulting in discrete energy levels similar to those of single atoms. Transition energies in the visible or near-infrared make quantum dots suitable for many applications in quantum optics and quantum information science, but to take advantage of all the properties of quantum dot emission, it is necessary to excite them coherently which has been a great challenge due to background scattering of the excitation laser. This dissertation presents the first coherent control of a single quantum dot with observation of its resonance fluorescence and decoherence phenomena. Strong continuous-wave excitation causes the dot to undergo several Rabi oscillations before emitting. These are visible as oscillations in the first- and second-order correlation functions of the emission, and the quantum dot states are "dressed", resulting in a Mollow triplet in the emission spectrum. Some resonantly excited dots, in addition to resonance fluorescence, also emit light from excited states several meV higher in energy. Such up-conversion fits existing theories of decoherence but has never been directly observed before. The up-conversion intensity is shown to be described well by a fairly simple three-level model with single-phonon absorption. The coherent phenomena of resonance fluorescence and the decoherence due to up-conversion paint a dual picture of single quantum dots wherein they can sometimes be treated as an ideal two-level system, but their interactions with the host crystal can lead to many complex behaviors. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-213). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.