Light Interaction With an Ensemble of Quantum Dots [Guest Editorial]

The quantum technologies series of articles started with the basics of quantum electromagnetics and then turned to deal with various promising applications. These range from the computation of the Casimir force to the analysis of interactions between electromagnetic waves and large molecules behaving as nanoantennas. Another article outlined the advantages of more futuristic higher level applications, such as quantum radars and lidars. Recent articles in the series covered device-level performance, including the quantum electrodynamics of plasmonic waveguides and construction of transmon qubits. Similarly, the present contribution, “Numerical Simulations of Laser Pulse Propagation in Quantum Active Media,” deals with the semiclassical analysis of field interaction with a collection of quantum dots, posing a heavy computational challenge. One typically sidesteps this by deriving a homogeneous behavior. But this leaves out interesting design opportunities. This article takes a different approach to the self-consistent analysis of a large ensemble of quantum dots. It combines analysis methods that are well known in the electromagnetics community together with predictor–corrector methods to solve for the evolution of the polarization of quantum dots. Interestingly, the approach correctly predicts experimentally observed behavior.