Optics topics

The book Optics: Principles and Applications is geared toward engineering and physics students and professionals, detailing topics such as holography, geometric optics, Fourier transforms, Fraunhofer and Fresnel diffraction, the coherence of light waves and light propagation in anisotropic media. Providing more than 400 illustrations and a problem set in each chapter, the 655-page book emphasizes applications to demonstrate related theories. It discusses how to solve problems in lens aberration, including distortion, ray deviations and focusing errors. Matrix techniques for the description of optical instruments and laser resonators are included. A section on nonlinear optics addresses polarization, optical phase conjugation and symmetry properties of the susceptibility tensors. References and an index are provided. K.K. Sharma; !%Academic Press%!, an imprint of Elsevier, Burlington, Mass., 2006; $79.95.