ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO ELECTROMAGNETIC-FIELD QUANTIZATION IN NONLINEAR AND INHOMOGENEOUS-MEDIA

A simple approach is proposed for the quantization of the electromagne tic field in nonlinear and inhomogeneous media. Given the dielectric f unction and nonlinear susceptibilities, the Hamiltonian of the electro magnetic field is determined completely by this quantization method. F rom Heisenberg's equations we derive Maxwell's equations for the field operators. When the nonlinearity goes to zero, this quantization meth od returns to the generalized canonical quantization procedure for lin ear inhomogeneous media [Phys. Rev. A 43, 467 (1991)]. The explicit Ha miltonians for the second-order and third-order nonlinear quasi-steady -state processes are obtained based on this quantization procedure.