Quantum Mechanics of Circularly Polarized Photons. II

Quantum Mechanics of Photons

We present a short review of the concept of photon wave function and the photon wave equation which represents the Schrödinger equation for the photon. Photon wave function puts the photon on the same footing as particles with mass and presents the first quantization formulation for electromagnetic fields. Because the photon has zero rest mass and it always moves with speed of light, the quantu...

Beaming circularly polarized photons from quantum dots coupled with plasmonic spiral antenna.

Coupling nanoscale emitters via optical antennas enables comprehensive control of photon emission in terms of intensity, directivity and polarization. In this work we report highly directional emission of circularly polarized photons from quantum dots coupled to a spiral optical antenna. The structural chirality of the spiral antenna imprints spin state to the emitted photons. Experimental resu...

Generation of circularly polarized photons for a linear collider polarized positron source

Various methods of obtaining longitudinally polarized positrons for future linear col-liders are reviewed. Special attention is paid to the schemes using circularly polarized high-energy photons for positron production. Most effectively such photons are obtained from electrons passing through a helical undulator or colliding with a circularly polarized laser wave. Spectrum and polarization of r...

Circularly polarized emission from ensembles of InAs/GaAs quantum dots

Quantum-classical correspondence in circularly polarized high harmonic generation