Professor of Optics and Professor of Physics
The Institute of Optics
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627-0186

Phone: (716)275-2598
Fax: (716)244-4936
Email: stroud@optics.rochester.edu

Honors and Awards

Professor Stroud is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Optical Society of America. He has held several distinguished lectureships and lectured at nearly a hundred universities around the world.

Research Interests

A pioneer in the field of quantum optics, Professor Stroud has carried out theoretical and experimental studies in most areas of the field from its beginnings in the late 60's, studying the fundamentals of the quantum mechanics of atoms and light and their interaction. He and his students were among the first to observe and study the way in which the absorption and emission spectra of atoms are modified by the interaction with coherent tunable laser radiation through studies of resonance fluorescence, coherent population trapping, Autler-Townes splitting, and modulation spectroscopy. He has also worked in laser theory and development, multiphoton absorption and ionization, pulse propagation, and cooperative emission.

For the past decade he has led the development of the field of wave packet physics in which the electrons within an atom are controlled to an unprecedented extent, sculpted into desired geometric shapes and forced along particular trajectories. Exotic electron states that have been produced include a form of Young's double slit interferometer in which a single electron is split between two wave packets that separate by large distances and then interfere within a single atom; a Schrodinger cat-like state; and fractional revivals in which a single electron undergoes a series of transformations in which it is localized in one place, two places, three places, etc. simultaneously while circling a classical orbit around the nucleus in an atom. These studies illuminate the boundary between classical and quantum physics and also raise the possibility that the internal states of atoms may be controlled in a fashion that mimics miniature electronic circuits within a single atom.