Daniel Frank Walls
| Daniel Walls | |
|---|---|
| Born | Daniel Frank Walls 13 September 1942 Napier, New Zealand |
| Died | 12 May 1999 (aged 56) Auckland, New Zealand |
| Residence | New Zealand |
| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater |
|
| Thesis | Topics in Non-Linear Quantum Optics (1969) |
| Doctoral advisor | Roy J. Glauber |
| Doctoral students |
|
| Known for | Quantum optics |
| Notable awards |
|
|
Website www |
|
Daniel Frank Walls (13 September 1942 – 12 May 1999) FRS was a New Zealand theoretical physicist specialising in quantum optics.
Walls gained a BSc in physics and mathematics and a first class honours MSc in physics at the University of Auckland. He then went to Harvard University as a Fulbright Scholar, obtaining his PhD in 1969, supervised by Roy J. Glauber who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005.
After holding postdoctoral research positions in Auckland and Stuttgart, Walls became a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Waikato in 1972, where he became professor in 1980. In 1987 he moved to the University of Auckland as professor of theoretical physics.
His major research interests centred on the interaction and similarities between light and atoms. He was notable for his wide-ranging expertise in relating theory to experiment, and was involved in all major efforts to understand non-classical light. A seminal paper by Walls with his first graduate student Howard Carmichael, showed how to create antibunched light, in which photons arrive at regular intervals, rather than randomly.
Walls was a pioneer in the study of ways that the particle-like nature of light (photons) could be controlled to make optical systems less susceptible to unwanted fluctuations, in particular by the use of squeezed light, a concept formulated by Carlton Caves. In squeezed light, some fluctuations can be made very small provided other fluctuations are correspondingly large.
He made major contributions to the theory of quantum measurement such as those involving Einstein's "which-path" experiment, and the quantum nondemolition measurement. Walls also used a simple field theoretical approach to explain and corroborate Dirac's description of photon interference and in particular Dirac's statement "that a photon interferes only with itself."
...
Wikipedia