Nonlinear optical signals from an assembly of N noninteracting particles consist of an incoherent and a coherent component, whose magnitudes scale sim N and sim N(N-1), respectively. A unified microscopic description of both types of signals is developed using a quantum electrodynamical (QED) treatment of the optical fields. Closed nonequilibrium Greens function expressions are derived that incorporate both stimulated and spontaneous processes. General (n+1)-wave mixing experiments are discussed as an example of spontaneously generated signals. When performed on a single particle, such signals cannot be expressed in terms of the nth order polarization, as predicted by the semiclassical theory. Stimulated processes are shown to be purely incoherent in nature. Within the QED framework, heterodyne-detected wave mixing signals are simply viewed as incoherent stimulated emission, whereas homodyne signals are generated by coherent spontaneous emission.
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