V. Basil Hans,
Sowjanya S. Shetty,
- Department of Computer Science, Research Professor at Srinivas University in Mangalore, Karnataka, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science Economics at Poornaprajna College in Udupi, Karnataka, India
Abstract
Light-matter interaction is crucial to numerous fundamental and applied phenomena in contemporary physics, encompassing quantum optics and materials science. This study examines modern methods for comprehending and controlling the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter, focusing on both theoretical frameworks and experimental progress. The interaction between light and matter is a fundamental aspect of contemporary physics, forming the basis for phenomena that include the essential principles of vision and photosynthesis, as well as advanced technologies like lasers, solar cells, and quantum computers. In the last 100 years, new ideas in quantum mechanics and electromagnetic theory have changed the way we think about how particles and photons share energy, momentum, and information. This field is more active than ever right now because of new materials, theoretical discoveries, and precise experiments. Maxwell’s classical electrodynamics is a great way to comprehend a lot of large-scale optical phenomena. Nonetheless, it inadequately elucidates the discontinuous and probabilistic characteristics of light-matter interactions found at atomic and subatomic levels. The advancement of quantum electrodynamics (QED) and its amalgamation with quantum field theory have facilitated a more accurate characterisation of these interactions, uncovering complex phenomena such as spontaneous emission, stimulated absorption, and quantum coherence. Recent advancements in laser technology, ultrafast spectroscopy, and nanofabrication have established novel domains of light-matter coupling, enabling interactions to be adjusted to occur on femtosecond durations or within nanostructured materials that restrict light to dimensions smaller than its wavelength. These regimes enable researchers to investigate phenomena including strong and ultrastrong coupling, polariton creation, and quantum entanglement in light-matter systems. We investigate quantum electrodynamics (QED), cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED), and strong coupling regimes, in addition to developing fields such as ultra-fast spectroscopy, topological photonics, and light-matter hybrid systems, including polaritons.
Keywords: Quantum electrodynamics (QED), cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), strong coupling regime, ultrafast spectroscopy, light-matter hybrid systems, topological photonics, quantum coherence
[This article belongs to Research & Reviews : Journal of Physics ]
V. Basil Hans, Sowjanya S. Shetty. Modern Physics Approaches to Light-Matter Interaction. Research & Reviews : Journal of Physics. 2025; 14(03):10-19.
V. Basil Hans, Sowjanya S. Shetty. Modern Physics Approaches to Light-Matter Interaction. Research & Reviews : Journal of Physics. 2025; 14(03):10-19. Available from: https://journals.stmjournals.com/rrjophy/article=2025/view=233878
References
- Flick J, Ruggenthaler M, Appel H, Rubio A. Atoms and molecules in cavities: from weak to strong coupling in quantum-electrodynamics (QED) chemistry. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017;114(12):3026–34. doi:10.1073/pnas.1615509114. PubMed: 28275094.
- Andrews DL. Photon-based and classical descriptions in nanophotonics: a review. J Nanophoton. 2014 Mar;8(1):081599. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JNP.8.081599
- Schäfer C, Buchholz F, Penz M, Ruggenthaler M, et al. Making ab initio QED functional(s): Non-perturbative and photon-free effective frameworks for strong light-matter coupling. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2021 Oct 12;118(41):e2110464118.
- Schäfer C, Ruggenthaler M, Rokaj V, Rubio A. Relevance of the Quadratic Diamagnetic and Self-Polarization Terms in Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics. ACS Photon. 2020;7(4):975–990. https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.9b01649.
- Hoffmann NM, Appel H, Rubio A, Maitra NT. Light–matter interactions via the exact factorization approach. Eur Phys J B. 2018;91(8):180. doi:10.1140/epjb/e2018-90177-6.
- Ma X, Youngblood N, Liu X, Cheng Y, et al. Engineering photonic environments for two-dimensional materials. Nanophotonics. 2020;10(3):1031–1058. degruyterbrill.com
- LePain, Matthew S. Designer Metasurfaces for On-Demand Optical Responses. Dissertation. USA: Georgia Southern University; 2017;1558. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/1558
- Vos WL, Lagendijk A, Mosk AP. Light propagation and emission in complex photonic media. In: Mher Ghulinyan and Lorenzo Pavesi, eds. Light Localisation and Lasing: Random and Pseudorandom Photonic Structures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2015.
- Mornhinweg J, Diebel L, Halbhuber M, Riepl J, et al. Sculpting ultrastrong light–matter coupling through spatial matter structuring. Nanophotonics. 2024 Jan 11;13(10):1909–1915. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Kamper Svendsen M, Sommer Thygesen K, Rubio A, Flick J. Ab initio calculations of quantum light-matter interactions in general electromagnetic environments. J Chem Theory Comput. 2023;20(2):926–936.
- Scalari G, Maissen C, Cibella S, Leoni R, et al. THz ultrastrong light-matter coupling. arXiv:1611.09151. 2016.
- Weight BM, Li X, Zhang Y. Theory and Modelling of Light-Matter Interactions in Chemistry: Current and Future. Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2023;25(46):31554–31577. DOI:10.1039/D3CP01415K.
- Ma Y. Nonlinear Optical Properties of Semiconductor and Oxide Nanostructures. Doctoral Dissertation. Pennsylvania, United States: The University of Pittsburgh; 2013.
- Norrman A, Łukasz Rudnicki. Quantum correlations and complementarity of vectorial light fields. arXiv:1904.07533. 2019.
- Ferdous J, Hong M, Dawkins RB, Oktyabrskaya A, et al. Emergence of Multiphoton Quantum Coherence via Light Propagation. ACS Photonics. 2024;11(8):3197–3204. https://scispace.com/
- Presilla RC, Onofrio U, Tambini U. Quantum Zeno Effect with the Feynman-Mensky Path-Integral Approach. Phys Lett A. 1997;183(2–3):135–140.
- Gagen MJ, Milburn GJ. Quantum Zeno Effect Induced by Quantum-Nondemolition Measurement of Photon Number. Phys Rev A. 1992 Apr 1;45(7):5228–5236.
- Milburn GJ, Gagen MJ. Rydberg-Atom Phase-Sensitive Detection and the Quantum Zeno Effect. Phys Rev A. 1992;46(3):1578–1585. DOI:10.1103/PhysRevA.46.1578
- Sky Peng L. Clocked Atom Delivery to a Photonic Crystal Waveguide: Simulations and Experiments. 2019. https://arxiv.org/
- Henke JW, Sajid Raja A, Feist A, Huang G, et al. Integrated photonics makes continuous-beam electron phase modulation possible. Nature. 2021 Dec;600(7890):653–658. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Chang DE, Hosseinabadi H, Marino J. Nonequilibrium Dyson equations for strongly coupled light and matter: spin glass formation in multi-mode cavity QED. arXiv:2312.11624v3. 2023.
- Kruchinin SU, Krausz F, Yakovlev VS. Strong-field Phenomena in Periodic Systems. Rev Mod Phys. 2017;90(2):021002.
- Muller A. Resonance Fluorescence and Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics with Quantum Dots. Dissertation. Austin: University of Texas; 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/3163
- Burkard G, Gullans MJ, Mi X, Petta JR. Superconductor-semiconductor hybrid cavity quantum electrodynamics. Nat Rev Phys. 2020;2(3):129–140. Pre-print ID: arXiv:1905.01155.
- Lodahl P, Stobbe S. Solid-state quantum optics with quantum dots in photonic nanostructures. Nanophotonics. 2012 Nov;2(1):39–55. DOI:10.1515/nanoph-2012-0039
- Benz A, Campione S, Liu S, Montaño I, et al. Strong coupling in the sub-wavelength limit using metamaterial nanocavities. Nat Commun. 2013;4(1):2882. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Northup TE, Blatt R. Quantum Information Transfer Utilising Photons. arXiv:1708.00424. 2017.
- Steve Hsu P. Magneto-optical control of coherent nonlinear processes. Opt Commun. 2009;199(1–4):127–142. DOI:10.1016/S0030-4018(01)01534-6.
- Li H. Coherent Control of Laser Field and Spectroscopy in Dense Atomic Vapour. Thesis. 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-05-7684
- Csehi A, Halász GJ, Ágnes Vibók, Kowalewski M. Quantum Control with Quantum Light of Molecular Nonadiabaticity. Phys Rev A. 2019;100:053421.
- Schweickert L, Jöns KD, Namazi M, Cui G, Lettner T, Zeuner KD, Montaña LS, Covre da Silva SF, Reindl M, Huang H, Trotta R, Rastelli A, Zwiller V, Figueroa E. Electromagnetically induced transparency of on-demand single photons in a hybrid quantum network. Preprint. 2018 Aug 17. Report No.: arXiv:1808.05921. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1808.05921.
- Je-Hyung Kim, Shahriar Aghaeimeibodi, Jacques Carolan, Dirk Englund, Edo Waks. Hybrid integration methods for on-chip quantum photonics. Optica. 2020;7(4):291–308.

Research & Reviews : Journal of Physics
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 03 |
| Received | 04/10/2025 |
| Accepted | 24/10/2025 |
| Published | 15/11/2025 |
| Publication Time | 42 Days |
Login
PlumX Metrics