1 Introduction

1.1 Maxwell's equations

1.2 Permittivity of isotropic materials

1.3 Dispersion relations

1.4 Causality and its implications

1.5 Simple solutions of Maxwell's equations

References

2 Light propagation through dispersive dielectric slabs

2.1 State of polarization of optical waves

2.2 Impedance and refractive index

2.3 Fresnel equations

2.4 Propagation of optical pulses

2.5 Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method

2.6 Phase and group velocities

2.7 Pulse propagation through a dielectric slab

References

3 Interaction of light with generic active media

3.1 Reflection of light from a gain medium

3.2 Surface-plasmon polaritons

3.3 Gain-assisted management of group velocity

3.4 Gain-assisted dispersion control

References

4 Optical Bloch equations

4.1 The bra and ket vectors

4.2 Density operator

4.3 Density-matrix equations for two-level atoms

4.4 Optical Bloch equations

4.5 Maxwell-Bloch equations

4.6 Numerical integration of Maxwell-Bloch equations

References

5 Fiber amplifiers

5.1 Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

5.2 Amplifier gain and its bandwidth

5.3 Rate equations for EDFAs

5.4 Amplification under CW conditions

5.5 Amplification of picosecond pulses

5.6 Autosolitons and similaritons

5.7 Amplification of femtosecond pulses

References

6 Semiconductor optical amplifiers

6.1 Material aspects of SOAs

6.2 Carrier density and optical gain

6.3 Picosecond pulse amplification

6.4 Femtosecond pulse amplification

References

7 Raman amplifiers

7.1 Raman effect

7.2 Raman gain spectrum of optical fibers

7.3 Fiber Raman amplifiers

7.4 Silicon Raman amplifiers

References

8 Optical parametric amplifiers

8.1 Physics behind parametric amplification

8.2 Phase-matching condition

8.3 Four-wave mixing in optical fibers

8.4 Three-wave mixing in birefringent crystals

8.5 Phase matching in birefringent fibers

References

9 Gain in optical metamaterials

9.1 Classification of metamaterials

9.2 Schemes for loss compensation in metamaterials

9.3 Amplif？cation through three-wave mixing

9.4 Resonant four-wave mixing using dopants

9.5 Backward self-induced transparency

References

Index