Ultrafast Spectroscopy : Quantum Information and Wavepackets

The applications of nonlinear ultrafast spectroscopy are numerous and widespread, and it is an established and indispensable technique for revealing ultrafast processes in modern material, chemical and biochemical research. Unfortunately, it is also a topic that can be daunting to those meeting it for the first time. Assuming just an understanding of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, and making use of many worked examples and accompanied by MATLAB® codes for numerical simulations of spectra, this book delivers a practical and intuitive introduction to the subject for advanced students and researchers. It will also be useful for practitioners, who are already familiar with the subject, but who want to develop a more conceptual understanding.

In this clear text, experienced practitioners present a simple and conceptually intuitive overview of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy using the formalism of quantum processes and wavepacket dynamics. Using this unified framework, the authors provide the reader with simple analytical models, examples and concepts to understand the workings of nonlinear spectroscopy through a pedagogical and physically intuitive approach. The core of the book is the section on pump-probe spectroscopy, as on understanding its mathematical description, more complex and multidimensional spectroscopies become easily understood derivatives. 

Readers, once familiar with the material in this text, will be fully equipped with the tools to devise and undertake well reasoned spectroscopic experiments.

Joel Yuen-Zhou is currently the Robert J Silbey Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center of Excitonics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jacob Krich is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa. Ivan Kassal is UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland. Allan Johnson is a Marie-Curie Early Stage Researcher and NSERC PGS award holder in the Quantum Optics and Laser Science division at Imperial College London. Alán Aspuru-Guzik is a Professor at Harvard University in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. He received his doctoral degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and was the recipient of the 35 Innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review for his contributions to the intersection of quantum information and quantum chemistry.