Editorial

Abstract

The Spring Meetings of the German Physical Society have long been an essential forum for physicists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These conferences, held at different universities, provide a lively and unique atmosphere for young researchers, in particular, in which to present their most recent results to a broad audience, establish new contacts and discuss future projects.

This special issue of Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics – features selected papers presented at the 1997 Spring Meeting of the Quantum Optics Section, held at the University of Mainz. Clearly, a selection of articles cannot provide exhaustive coverage of the scientific program of a conference. Nevertheless, the reader will hopefully get an impression of the broad range of the discussed topics, maybe even of the international spirit. The board of editors of the journal as well as the guest editors have planned this special issue as the beginning of a trend to highlight top-quality modern research presented at future meetings of the Quantum Optics Section by publication in Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics.