IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics (JQE) is proud to celebrate its 60th anniversary with a yearlong retrospective highlighting the most impactful papers published throughout its history.
Starting with the 1960s—the decade in which JQE was founded—Editor-in-Chief John Dallessasse and the JQE Editorial Board are selecting two seminal articles from each decade to reprint and spotlight in upcoming issues. The selections are based on citation count, download metrics, and overall influence on the field.
The two articles selected from the 1960s are:
- E. Treacy, “Optical pulse compression with diffraction gratings”, IEEE J. Quantum Electron., vol. QE-5, no. 9, pp. 454–458, Sep. 1969.
View on Xplore - F. Arecchi and R. Bonifacio, “Theory of optical maser amplifiers”, IEEE J. Quantum Electron., vol. QE-1, no. 4, pp. 169–178, Jul. 1965.
View on Xplore
These groundbreaking works were instrumental in shaping quantum electronics and photonics. Treacy’s paper introduced the diffraction grating pulse compressor—an innovation still widely used in high-peak-power laser systems today—while the Arecchi-Bonifacio equations provided foundational theoretical insights into light-matter interaction in active media.
An editorial from John Dallessasse exploring the historical significance of these works, as well as the origins of the journal and the broader context of the 1960s, is now available on IEEE Xplore.
Read the editorial
Throughout 2025, JQE will continue this decade-by-decade spotlight with additional reprints and retrospectives from the 1970s through the 2010s. These selections are part of a broader effort to honor the legacy of JQE and the IEEE Photonics Society during this milestone anniversary year.
We invite the photonics and quantum research community to revisit these classic papers and celebrate the remarkable evolution of our field.
