Quantum electronics

Quantum electronics is the area of physics dealing with the effects of quantum mechanics on the behaviour of electrons in matter, and their interactions with photons.

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It is today rarely considered a subfield in its own right, as it has been absorbed by other fields: solid state physics regularly takes quantum mechanics into account, and is usually concerned with electrons. Specific application to electronics is researched within semiconductor physics.

The field also encompasses the basic processes of laser operation where photons are interacting with electrons: absorption, spontaneous emission, and stimulated emission.

The term was mainly used between the 1950s and the 1970s. Today, the research output of this field is mainly used in quantum optics, especially for the part of it that draws not from atomic physics but from solid-state physics.

See also

• Quantum Hall effect
• Quantum cellular automata