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Daniel Walls was a theoretical physicist specialising in quantum optics.
Dan Walls gained a BSc in physics and mathematics and a first class honours MSc in physics at the University of Auckland. He then went to Harvard as a Fulbright Scholar, obtaining his PhD in 1969, under Roy J. Glauber. After holding post-doctoral positions in Auckland and Stuttgart, Walls became a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Waikato in 1972, where he became professor in 1980. In 1987 he moved to the University of Auckland as professor of theoretical physics.
His major research interests centered on the interaction and similarities between light and atoms. He was notable for his wide-ranging expertise in relating theory to experiment, and was involved in all major efforts to understand non-classical light. A seminal paper by Walls with his first graduate student Howard Carmichael, showed how to create antibunched light, in which photons arrive at regular intervals, rather than randomly.
He also was a pioneer in the study of ways that the particle-like nature of light could be controlled to make optical systems less susceptible to unwanted fluctuations, in particular by the use of squeezed light, a concept formulated by Carlton Caves. In squeezed light, some fluctuations can be made very small provided other fluctuations are correspondingly large.
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