[Physics] How do electromagnetic waves carry quantised energy

electromagnetism

If an electron oscillates about a mean position, it will create a time varying electric filed which in turn will create a time varying magnetic field and so on to create an electromagnetic wave. How does this wave carry energy , in which amount and how can this be quantised?

I know that energy is quantised when we see it through the particle nature of EM waves but how can it be defined in terms of time varying electric and magnetic fields?

Best Answer

It is a difficult thing to visualize and connected with the wave-particle duality of photons. I think what you are interested in is the Second Quantization. This is where an electromagnetic wave is decomposed into its Fourier modes and each Fourier mode can be interpreted as simple harmonic oscillator. The energy levels of such oscillators corresponds to $E = nh\nu$, where each electromagnetic mode with that energy is a state that has $n$ photons with energy $h\nu$.

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