¿A one-volume reference that covers every imaginable interaction of atmosphere and light . . . This definitive book is once again available.¿ ¿SKY & TELESCOPE ¿A change-your-life classic . . . This deeply perceptive book changes our own perceptions of all kinds of light and color events in the outdoors. You will never see the same way again outdoors. Some examples involve elementary optics (which explain the visual phenomena) but nearly all the 278 short chapters can be appreciated by the visually alert reader. My favorite examples include dappled light, rainbows (there are always two), and differences between reflected and transmitted light in seeing leaves and grass. The Dover edition is fine; the Springer-Verlag edition is better with its excellent color photographs.¿ ¿EDWARD R. TUFTE, AUTHOR OF ¿THE VISUAL DISPLAY OF QUANTITATIVE INFORMATION¿ All of science springs from the observations of nature. In this classic book, the late Marcel Minnaert accompanies the reader on a tour of nature's light and color and reveals the myriad phenomena that may be observed outdoors with no more than a pair of sharp eyes and an enquiring mind. From the intriguing shape of the dapples beneath a tree on a sunny day, to rainbows, mirages, and haloes, to the colors of liquid, ice, and the sky, to the appearance of the sun, moon, planets, and stars - Minnaert describes and explains them all in a clear language accessible to the general reader. The author's enthusiasm inspires the reader, who is encouraged and given abundant opportunity to make his or her own observations and perform simple experiments. Yet the phototgrapher, astronomer, or physicist will also find a wealth of detailed information, much available elsewhere, on more exotic phenomena assembled by Minnaert over many years. Among them are Sun dogs, the fata morgana, coronae, glories, noctilucent and iridescent clouds, and haloes. This volume includes 80 new photographs, over half in color, illustrating many of the phenomena - ordinary and exotic - discussed in the book. Most of the new photos are by Pekka Parviainen, the renowned Finnish nature photographer.

Fiber sensing technologies have enabled both fundamental studies and a wide spectrum of applications in every aspect of life. This book highlights the recent advancement in fiber sensing technologies based on newly developed sensing mechanisms, advanced fiber structures, and functional materials. In particular, the integration of functional materials with different electrical, optical, thermal, or mechanical properties into a single fiber offers a wealth of new opportunities in sensing. The book covers the major developments in novel fiber materials, such as semiconductors, metals, polymers, soft glasses, and carbon materials, as well as the sensing applications based on both single fiber and multi-dimensional fiber arrays for temperature, light, strain, vibration, electric and magnetic fields, hazardous chemicals, gases, and physiological signals.

The birth of quantum electronics in the middle of the 20th century, and the subsequent discovery of the laser, led to new trends in physics and a number of photonic technologies. This volume is dedicated to Peter Franken, a pioneer of nonlinear optics, and includes papers by the founders of quantum electronics, Aleksandr Prokhorov, Nicholaas Bloembergen and Norman Ramsey. A number of papers are devoted to current problems in laser physics, written by well-known leaders in the international quantum optics and lasers community and their collaborators. The topics covered range from astronomy to nuclear and semiconductor physics, and from fundamental problems in quantum mechanics to applications in novel laser materials and nanoscience.

Describes the optical structure and optical properties of the human eye Explains image formation and refraction of the eye Covers interactions between light and the eye, considering transmission, reflection and scatter in the media of the eye and at the fundus Covers aberrations and image quality of the eye

Integrated Silicon Optoelectronics synthesizes topics from optoelectronics and microelectronics. The book concentrates on silicon as the major base of modern semiconductor devices and circuits. Starting from the basics of optical emission and absorption, as well as from the device physics of photodetectors, the aspects of the integration of photodetectors in modern bipolar, CMOS, and BiCMOS technologies are discussed. Detailed descriptions of fabrication technologies and applications of optoelectronic integrated circuits are included. The book, furthermore, contains a review of the newest state of research on eagerly anticipated silicon light emitters. In order to cover the topics comprehensively, also included are integrated waveguides, gratings, and optoelectronic power devices. Numerous elaborate illustrations facilitate and enhance comprehension. This extended edition will be of value to engineers, physicists, and scientists in industry and at universities. The book is also recommended to graduate students specializing on microelectronics or optoelectronics.

Despite more than half a century of theoretical work, the Casimir effect is still not as fully understood as some suppose. In this treatise, the author uncovers new puzzles and paradoxes concerning this mysterious phenomenon. In particular, he clearly demonstrates that the most sophisticated theories fail when confronted with dielectrics in which the refractive index is not uniform but gradually changes.

The field of ultrafast nonlinear optics is broad and multidisciplinary, and encompasses areas concerned with both the generation and measurement of ultrashort pulses of light, as well as those concerned with the applications of such pulses. Ultrashort pulses are extreme events - both in terms of their durations, and also the high peak powers which their short durations can facilitate. These extreme properties make them powerful experiment tools. On one hand, their ultrashort durations facilitate the probing and manipulation of matter on incredibly short timescales. On the other, their ultrashort durations can facilitate high peak powers which can drive highly nonlinear light-matter interaction processes. Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics covers a complete range of topics, both applied and fundamental in nature, within the area of ultrafast nonlinear optics. Chapters 1 to 4 are concerned with the generation and measurement of ultrashort pulses. Chapters 5 to 7 are concerned with fundamental applications of ultrashort pulses in metrology and quantum control. Chapters 8 and 9 are concerned with ultrafast nonlinear optics in optical fibres. Chapters 10 to 13 are concerned with the applications of ultrashort pulses in areas such as particle acceleration, microscopy, and micromachining. The chapters are aimed at graduate-student level and are intended to provide the student with an accessible, self-contained and comprehensive gateway into each subject.

This book focuses on the fundamentals, technologies and properties of ion irradiation of dielectric materials (e.g. glasses, crystals) with regard to various photonic applications. It introduces readers to diverse ion-beam techniques for the fabrication and modification of micron- or nanoscale photonic structures, including optical waveguides, photonic crystals, and nanoparticle (nano-spheres and nano-rods) systems, and presents state-of-the-art advances in this multi-disciplinary research field, demonstrating the unique capabilities of ion-beam technologies in optical dielectric materials processing. The book discusses in detail the properties of ion-beam processed waveguides, as well as the modification of dielectrics for photonic applications, such as electro-optic modulation, nonlinear frequency conversion, waveguide amplification and lasing. It also explores synthesis and the correlated optical effects of nanoparticles by ion beams, and features examples of successful micro- and nano-photonic devices. Given its breadth of coverage, the book will particularly appeal to readers interested in ion-beam technology, materials science, and integrated optics.

This book is intended to serve as an introduction to the technology of thermal imaging, and as a compendium of the conventions which form the basis of current FUR practice. Those topics in thermal imaging which are covered adequately elsewhere are not treated here, so there is no discussion of detectors, cryogenic coolers, circuit design, or video displays. Useful infor mation which is not readily available because of obscure publication is referenced as originating from personal communications. Virtually everyone with whom I have worked in the thermal imaging business has contributed to the book through the effects of conversations and ideas. I gratefully proffer blanket appreciation to all those who have helped in that way to make this book possible. The contributions of five people, however, bear special mention: Bob Sendall, Luke Biberman, Pete Laakmann, George Hopper, and Norm Stetson. They, more than any others, have positively influenced my thinking."

This book is a comprehensive introduction on infrared anti-transparent materials and their applications in anti-reflective and protective coatings. Optical, mechanical and thermal properties and preparations of various kinds of films, such as amorphous diamond films, germanium carbide films, boron phosphide films, alumina films and yttrium oxide film are discussed in detail making it suitable for material scientists and industrial engineers.

This monograph offers a concise overview of the theoretical description of various collective phenomena in condensed matter physics. These effects include the basic electronic structure in solid state physics, lattice vibrations, superconductivity, light-matter interaction and more advanced topics such as martensitic transistions.

Synchrotron radiation is today extensively used for fundamental and applied research in many different fields of science. Its exceptional characteristics in terms of intensity, brilliance, spectral range, time structure and now also coherence pushed many experimental techniques to previously un-reachable limits, enabling the performance of experiments unbelievable only few years ago.

The book gives an up-to-date overview of synchrotron radiation research today with a view to the future, starting from its generation and sources, its interaction with matter, illustrating the main experimental technique employed and provides an overview of the main fields of research in which new and innovative results are obtained.

The book is addressed to PhD students and young researchers to provide both an introductory and a rather deep knowledge of the field. It will also be helpful to experienced researcher who want to approach the field in a professional way.

This book describes a simple yet innovative method for performing Raman spectroscopy of samples submerged under liquid nitrogen. While Raman spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful tool for the characterization of the structure of matter in the gaseous, liquid, and solid phases, one major difficulty in its application has been laser damage to the material under investigation, especially for biological samples. This book demonstrates how immersion of the sample in liquid nitrogen protects the sample from thermal degradation and oxidation at high incident laser power and allows improvements in sensitivity and spectral resolution over room-temperature Raman spectroscopy, leading to the so-called RUN (Raman Spectroscopy Under liquid Nitrogen) technique. Cooling to liquid nitrogen temperature also allows the selection of the lowest energy molecular conformation for molecules which may have many low energy conformers. In addition, the presence of liquid nitrogen over a roughened surface improves the sensitivity of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), enabling the closely related SERSUN (Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Under liquid Nitrogen) technique. This book starts with the theoretical and experimental basics of Raman and polarized Raman spectroscopy, before moving on to detailed descriptions of RUN and SERSUN. Room temperature and RUN spectra are provided for over fifty molecules.

This dissertation covers several important aspects of relativistically intense laser-microplasma interactions and some potential applications. A Paul-trap based target system was developed to provide fully isolated, well defined and well positioned micro-sphere-targets for experiments with focused peta-watt laser pulses. The laser interaction turned such targets into microplasmas, emitting proton beams with kinetic energies exceeding 10 MeV. The proton beam kinetic energy spectrum and spatial distribution were tuned by variation of the acceleration mechanism, reaching from broadly distributed spectra in relatively cold plasma expansions to spectra with relative energy spread as small as 20% in spherical multi-species Coulomb explosions and in directed acceleration processes. Numerical simulations and analytical calculations support these experimental findings and show how microplasmas may be used to engineer laser-driven proton sources. In a second effort, tungsten micro-needle-targets were used at a peta-watt laser to produce few-keV x-rays and 10-MeV-level proton beams simultaneously, both measured to have only few-m effective source-size. This source was used to demonstrate single-shot simultaneous radiographic imaging with x-rays and protons of biological and technological samples. Finally, the dissertation discusses future perspectives and directions for laser-microplasma interactions including non-spherical target shapes, as well as thoughts on experimental techniques and advanced quantitative image evaluation for the laser driven radiography.

The growth of Internet traf?c in recent years surpassed the prediction of one decade ago. Data stream in individual countries already reached terabit/s level. To cope with the petabit class demands of traf?c in coming years the communication engineers are required to go beyond the incremental improvement of today's technology. A most promising breakthrough would be the introduction of modulation f- mats enabling higher spectral ef?ciency than that of binary on-off keying scheme, virtually the global standard of ?ber-optic communication systems. In wireless communication systems, techniques of high spectral density modulation have been well developed, but the required techniques in optical frequency domain are much more complicated because of the heavier ?uctuation levels. Therefore the past trials of coherent optical modulation/detection schemes were not successful. However, the addition of high-speed digital signal processing technology is the fundam- tal difference between now and two decades ago, when trials of optical coherent communication systems were investigated very seriously. This approach of digital coherent technology has attracted keen interest among communication specialists, as indicated by the rapid increase in the pioneering presentations at the post-deadline sessions of major international conferences. For example, 32 terabit/s transmission in a ?ber experiment based on this technology was reported in post-deadline session of Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2009. The advancement of the digital coherent technologies will inevitably affect the network architecture in terms of the network resource management for the new generation photonic networks, rather than will simply provide with huge transmission capacity.

The revised edition of this important reference volume presents an expanded overview of the analytical and numerical approaches employed when exploring and developing modern laser materials processing techniques. The book shows how general principles can be used to obtain insight into laser processes, whether derived from fundamental physical theory or from direct observation of experimental results. The book gives readers an understanding of the strengths and limitations of simple numerical and analytical models that can then be used as the starting-point for more elaborate models of specific practical, theoretical or commercial value. Following an introduction to the mathematical formulation of some relevant classes of physical ideas, the core of the book consists of chapters addressing key applications in detail: cutting, keyhole welding, drilling, arc and hybrid laser-arc welding, hardening, cladding and forming. The second edition includes a new a chapter on glass cutting with lasers, as employed in the display industry. A further addition is a chapter on meta-modelling, whose purpose is to construct fast, simple and reliable models based on appropriate sources of information. It then makes it easy to explore data visually and is a convenient interactive tool for scientists to improve the quality of their models and for developers when designing their processes. As in the first edition, the book ends with an updated introduction to comprehensive numerical simulation. Although the book focuses on laser interactions with materials, many of the principles and methods explored can be applied to thermal modelling in a variety of different fields and at different power levels. It is aimed principally however at academic and industrial researchers and developers in the field of laser technology.

This book addresses the theoretical foundations and the main physical consequences of electromagnetic interaction, generally considered to be one of the four fundamental interactions in nature, in a mathematically rigorous yet straightforward way. The major focus is on the unifying features shared by classical electrodynamics and all other fundamental relativistic classical field theories. The book presents a balanced blend of derivations of phenomenological predictions from first principles on the one hand, and concrete applications on the other. Further, it highlights the internal inconsistencies of classical electrodynamics, and addresses and resolves often-ignored critical issues, such as the dynamics of massless charged particles, the infinite energy of the electromagnetic field, and the limits of the Green's function method. Presenting a rich, multilayered, and critical exposition on the electromagnetic paradigm underlying the whole Universe, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students in theoretical physics alike.

This volume lays down the foundations of a theory of rings based on finite maps. The purpose of the ring is entirely discussed in terms of the global properties of the one-turn map. Proposing a theory of rings based on such maps, this work offers another perspective on storage ring theory.

'Broadband Opto-Electrical Receivers in Standard CMOS' fits in the quest for integrated opto-electrical solutions, and focuses on the receiver front-end. To further reduce the cost, the cheapest technology is selected: standard CMOS, without any optical tricks or flavors. The emphasis is on the analysis, design and implementation of high-performance analog receiver circuits.The book starts from the basic fundamentals, necessary for the design of opto-electronic interface circuits. The book continues with an in-depth analysis of the photodiode, transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and limiting amplifier (LA).

This book showcases the state of the art in the field of electronics, as presented by researchers and engineers at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Italian Electronics Society (SIE), held in Rende (CS), Italy, on September 5-7, 2022. It covers a broad range of aspects, including: integrated circuits and systems, micro- and nano-electronic devices, microwave electronics, sensors and microsystems, optoelectronics and photonics, power electronics, electronic systems and applications.

Janus, the ancient Roman god depicted with two faces is an appropriate metaphor for light therapy. In the right photodynamic therapy conditions, light is able to kill nearly anything that is living such as cancers, microorganisms, parasites, and more. On the opposite face, light of the correct wavelength and proper dose (photobiomodulation) can heal, regenerate, protect, revitalize and restore any kind of dead, damaged, stressed, dying, degenerating cells, tissue, or organ system. This book discusses both sides of Janus' face in regards to light therapy.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in both theory and practical implementation of plasmonic probes. Encompassing multiple disciplines, the field of plasmonics provides a versatile and flexible platform for nanoscale sensing and imaging. Despite being a relatively young field, plasmonic probes have come a long way, with applications in chemical, biological, civil, and architectural fields as well as enabling many analytical schemes such as immunoassay, biomarkers, environmental indexing, and water quality sensing, to name but a few. The objective of the book is to present in-depth analysis of the theory and applications of novel probes based on plasmonics, with a broad selection of specially-invited chapters on the development, fabrication, functionalization, and implementation of plasmonic probes as well as their integration with current technologies and future outlook. This book is designed to cater to the needs of novice, seasoned researchers and practitioners in academia and industry, as well as medical and environmental fields.

"Offers and up-to-date assessment of the entire field of diffraction gratings, including history, physics, manufacture, testing, and instrument design. Furnishes--for the first time in a single-source reference--a thorough review of efficiency behavior, examining echelles as well as concave, binary, transmission, fiber, and waveguide gratings."