Insight into Optics

An introductory textbook providing comprehensive coverage of optics for undergraduates with a limited background knowledge of the subject. Following the first nine chapters which present the fundamentals, the text presents more specific topics such as instrumentation, measurement and lasers.

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Covering the basics of optics at undergraduate level, this book assumes a modest mathematical background and it should be used in parallel with the usual mathematics courses needed by physicists and engineers. Topics covered include; the behaviour of light-waves in fibres, guided-wave structures, non-linear materials, the principles underlying laser action, and laser characteristics and applications. There are well chosen examples to illustrate the more difficult ideas introduced in the text. This text on optics starts at an elementary level and should be suitable for students whose previous grounding in physics is limited to that likely to be covered in an integrated science course. It is however assumed that the student will be following, concurrently with the optics course, an appropriate course of mathematics. Thus familiarity with complex numbers and vectors will be assumed. Much of the material in the first nine chapters lays the foundations for what follows. Chapters 10-13 cover topics whose importance has increased enormously since the arrival of the laser.
Chapter 14 heralds the impending takeover of the communication field from electrons to photons and Chapter 18 deals with the classical ideas of non-linear optics and introduces the developments resulting, from the availability of the laser. Three chapters on various aspects of optical measurements follow illustrating the very wide range of types of measurement which are possible using optical means. Chapter 19 reveals how one goes beyond the levels of subjective judgment in a scientific approach to the question of assessment.