We present a math-physics modeling approach called canonical quantization with numerical mode decomposition for capturing the physics of how incoming photons interact with finite-sized dispersive media, which is not describable by the previous Fano-diagonalization methods. The main procedure is to (1) study a system where electromagnetic fields are coupled to nonuniformly distributed Lorentz oscillators in Hamiltonian mechanics, (2) derive a generalized Hermitian eigenvalue problem for conjugate pairs in coordinate space, (3) apply computational electromagnetics methods to find a countably finite set of time-harmonic eigenmodes that diagonalizes the Hamiltonian, and (4) perform the subsequent canonical quantization with mode decomposition. Moreover, we provide several numerical simulations that capture the physics of full quantum effects, impossible by classical Maxwell's equations, such as nonlocal dispersion cancellation of an entangled photon pair and the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect in a dispersive beam splitter.

• Received 10 October 2020
• Revised 27 January 2021
• Accepted 28 April 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.103.063707