Lecture notes on developed and developing courses

Classical Electrodynamics and Photonics

These are lecture notes (in Russian) on the course of classical electrodynamics and corresponding problems. The course was designed and read by ANP in Russian in St. Petersburg Academic University in 2016–2021 (teaching assistants: Grigory Budkin, Dmitry Smirnov and Nikita Leppenen).

link to pdf

Videos for part of lectures from 2020/2021 semester (in Russian) YouTube link

We also have a set of 70+ original problems with solutions covering various aspects of modern classical electrodynamics, photonics and metamaterials physics, available upon request.

Optomechanics

These are partial lecture notes (in English) on the course on optomechanics. The course was designed and read by ANP together with Mikhail Petrov in ITMO University, St. Petersburg 2020–2021.

link to pdf

Collective light-matter coupling

This will eventually be part of a new course on collective effects in light-matter interactions with problems and solutions.

The course is being actively developed as of Feb 2025.

Interaction of arrays of emitters with photons is now a subject of active research. This is driven by a recent emergence of highly coherent artificial emitter platforms, such as those based on cold atoms, superconducting qubits, and semiconductor quantum dots. While the basic physical effects in these systems, for example, Dicke superradiance, have been known for decades, I am not aware of any systematic modern considerations, especially suitable for teaching purposes. I believe that one of the best ways to learn theoretical physics is to solve problems. So, I am compiling a set of problems and solutions describing various cooperative effects in the scattering of light from the resonant structures, mostly focusing on 1D arrays.

These problems elucidate the formation of collective superradiant and subradiant modes, formation of collective polaritonic states, Bragg scattering, and so on. Most of the problems are focused on the classical optics regime. Almost no previous knowledge of quantum mechanics is required. Classical electrodynamics at the undergraduate level should be mostly sufficient.

As of early 2025, the set of problems is being actively updated. I would be very grateful for any ideas for more problems and for finding misprints. For each of the problems posted below there are prepared solutions available on demand by email.

List of problems

Collective modes and Green functions

Resonant light scattering an emitter coupled to the waveguide link to pdf

Interference in light scattering from two emitters link to pdf

Coupled dipole equations for light scattering on an array link to pdf

Dispersion law of polaritons in an array of emitters link to pdf

Dispersion law of polaritons in an array of emitters, chirally coupled to the waveguide link to pdf

Destructive interference for two coupled emitters link to pdf

Collective eigenmodes in Bragg-spaced array of emitters link to pdf

Collective eigenmodes in an array of emitters depending on the period link to pdf

Decay rate of collective subradiant states link to pdf

Decay rate of most subradiant states by Fermi Golden Rule link to pdf

Reciprocity for the transmission coefficients link to pdf

Polariton reflection coefficient from the edge of the array link to pdf

Nonconjugated orthogonality for non-Hermitian Hamiltonian link to pdf

transfer matrices

Transfer matrix via reflection and transmission coefficients link to pdf

Transfer matrix via the reflection and transmission coefficients link to pdf

Reflection and transmission coefficients via the transfer matrix link to pdf

Dispersion law in transfer matrix method link to pdf

Polariton dispersion law in the transfer matrix method link to pdf

Polariton dispersion law in the Bragg structure (numerical) link to pdf

Polariton dispersion law in the Bragg structure (analytical) link to pdf

Polariton dispersion law in an effective medium approximation link to pdf

Reflection from multilayered structure (numerical) link to pdf

Reflection from multilayered structure vs period (numerical) link to pdf

Reflection from multilayered Bragg-spaced structure vs number of emitters (numerical) link to pdf

Reflection from multilayered structure vs number of emitters (numerical+analytical) link to pdf

Emitters in a cavity

Green function for an emitter near a mirror link to pdf

Green function for an emitter in a cavity link to pdf

Reflection from a cavity link to pdf

Reflection from an emitter in cavity link to pdf

Rabi splitting and Purcell effect for an emitter in cavity link to pdf

collective Rabi splitting for N emitters in cavity link to pdf

Some literature

semiconductor quantum wells

E. L. Ivchenko, A. I. Nesvizhskii, and S. Jorda, Bragg Reflection of Light from Quantum-Well Structures, Phys. Solid State 36, 1156 (1994) pdf

E. L. Ivchenko, Chapter 3 in Optical Spectroscopy of Semiconductor Nanostructures (Alpha Science International, Harrow, UK (2005) pdf

superconducting qubits

A. F. van Loo, A. Fedorov, K. Lalumiere, B. C. Sanders, A. Blais, and A. Wallraff, Photon-Mediated Interactions between Distant Artificial Atoms, Science 342, 1494 (2013) web

atoms

Y.-X. Zhang and K. Mølmer, Theory of Subradiant States of a One-Dimensional Two-Level Atom Chain, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 203605 (2019) web

review

A.S. Sheremet, M.I. Petrov, I.V. Iorsh, A.V. Poshakinskiy, and A.N. Poddubny, Waveguide quantum electrodynamics: Collective radiance and photon-photon correlations Rev. Mod. Phys. 95, 015002 (2023) web pdf