Optics, Light and Lasers: The Practical Approach to Modern Aspects of Photonics and Laser Physics

Preface The field of optics - in modern times perhaps equivalent to photonics - has become an important branch of the physical sciences and technologies. The saying that the twenty-first century will be the century of the photon, following the era of the electron, is gaining more and more credibility. This textbook has attempted - and continues to do so - to link the central topics of optics that were established 200 years ago to the most recent research topics. Since the very first German language edition published already in 1999, an impressive evolution of entire new directions has emerged. Optical and photonics research is no longer conceivable without a wide range of structured materials shaping the propagation of light fields. Optical fibers, photonic materials, and metamaterials offer an unprecedented degree of control over propagating optical fields. Inspiring concepts such as the “perfect lens” and “optical angular momentum” are posing new conceptual and experimental challenges and promise new and wide applications. Optical imaging has overcome the classic and seemingly unsurmountable Rayleigh-Abbe limit of resolution. Femtosecond laser frequency combs allow us today to perfectly count every cycle of an optical frequency, that is, with ultimate precision. The next development is looming: optical sciences are going to marry with information technology - perhaps a natural consequence of the photon following the footsteps of the electron. While a single book can impossibly be big enough to discuss all these newtopics at depth, this new edition picks them up selectively and links them to the fundamentals of optical science. It can serve as a reference for teaching the foundations of modern optics: classical optics, laser physics, laser spectroscopy, concepts of quantum optics, and nonlinear optics - those remain the building blocks of all experimental efforts and applications, but are frequently taken as “given” and no longer scrutinized for a deeper understanding. Dieter Meschede Bonn, January 2017