Quantum description of electromagnetic fields in waveguides

Abstract: Using quantum theory, we study the propagation of an optical field in an inhomogeneous dielectric, and apply this scheme to traveling optical fields in a waveguide. We introduce a field-atom interaction Hamiltonian and derive the refractive index using quantum optics. We show that the transmission and reflection of optical fields at an interface between different materials can be described with normalized Fresnel coefficients and that this representation is related to the beam splitter operator. We then study the propagation properties of the optical fields for two types of slab waveguides: step-index and graded-index. The waveguides are divided into multiple layers to represent the spatial dependence of the optical field. We can evaluate the number of photons in an arbitrary volume in the waveguide using this procedure. Using the present method, the quantum properties of weak optical fields in a waveguide are revealed, while coherent states with higher amplitudes reduces to representation of classical waveguide optics.