A History of Optics

  • Olivier Darrigol
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 344 pp. £35

This book traces the evolution of our understanding of optics and light, from early Greek theories of vision through to the nineteenth century formulation of the wave theory of light. It describes how the study of light emerged to become an important topic within the domain of physics and explores the subsequent competition between nineteenth century mechanical ether theories and medium-based and corpuscular concepts of light. The author, the director of research at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France, provides a rich and illustrated historical account of the field of optics in a single convenient volume. He interprets optical phenomena such as polarization and interference, and discusses how great scientists like Kepler and Newton shaped the field into what it is today.

Optical Biomimetrics: Materials and Applications

Edited by:
  • Maryanne Large
WOODHEAD PUBLISHING. 280 pp. £135

Biomimetrics — the use of optical designs found in the natural world as inspiration for building new types of manmade devices — is a popular and emerging area of research in photonics. This text summarizes and discusses key research in the field, focusing on the techniques and approaches used to characterize and mimic naturally occurring optical effects. The author starts with an overview of natural photonic structures and then goes on to discuss the optical applications of biomolecules such as retinylidene and bacteriorhodopsin, followed by polarization effects in natural photonic structures and their applications and biomimetic nanostructures for antireflection coatings. Control over iridescence in natural photonic structures is explored through the case of butterfly scales, and a discussion of silk optical materials is followed by a final discussion into the control of florescence in natural photonic structures.

The Angular Momentum of Light

Edited by:
  • David L. Andrews &
  • Mohamed Babiker
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 186 pp. £75

Research developments have allowed scientists to exploit light's property of angular momentum across a wide range of applications, ranging from microfluidics to quantum information. This book, written by a collection of internationally leading specialists, covers both fundamental and applied research with light carrying spin and orbital angular momentum (OAM). Chapters describe the quantum formulation of OAM, the generation of light beams and optical vortices with OAM, relevant measurement techniques, azimuthal entanglement and the behaviour of atoms in twisted light, among other topics.

Quantum Optics

  • Girish S. Agarwal
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 235 pp. £50

This textbook provides an up-to-date account of the basic principles and applications of quantum optics by describing many of the recent advances and developments in the field. Divided into 30 chapters, coverage includes the description and preparation of non-classical states of light, quantum optics on a chip, nanomechanical mirrors, quantum entanglement, quantum metrology, spin squeezing and control over decoherence. Readers are guided through the principles and applications of quantum optics across a wide variety of areas, including quantum information and quantum communications.

Semiconductor Lasers: Stability, Instability and Chaos

  • Junji Ohtsubo
SPRINGER. 570 pp. £153

The third edition of this book represents a significant improvement over the previous edition, featuring several new topics of discussion, a discussion of the dynamics and characteristics of chaos in semiconductor lasers, and the role of self-optical feedback and optical injection. New material includes chaos synchronization between two lasers and the principles and applications of fast physical number generation using chaotic semiconductor lasers. The author presents various designs of laser, such as quantum-dot lasers, quantum cascade lasers and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers.

Lightwave Engineering

  • Yasuo Kokubun
CRC PRESS. 373 pp. £82

This book begins by providing a comprehensive introduction to free-space lightwave propagation, waveguides and resonators, using both plane wave analysis and electromagnetic theory. It then discusses guided-wave optics, optical fibre modes and the propagation and focusing of Gaussian beams. Finally, waveguide circuitry is discussed, including optical coupling between waveguides, waveguide branching and the effect of bends. The text finishes with a large appendices section that describes useful formulae used within the book, including the Fourier transform, delta function, Green's theorem, coupled-mode equations and many others.