Photonics Handbook

Light is a versatile tool for investigating physical and chemical processes in nature. Any specific system being analyzed may, through the light it emits or reflects, communicate information about...

Over 60 years have passed since the first demonstration of a laser in 1960. After the initial spark of interest, lasers were for a while categorized as “a solution waiting for a problem,”...

What are thin-film coatings? The purpose of any optical thin-film coating is to modify the transmittance and reflectance properties of the substrate material to which they are applied. Most coatings...

The optical materials selected for an optical system depend upon the application, the required system performance and the environment in which the system is to perform; thus the materials’...

With a specific gravity of 1.85 g/cm3, beryllium is the lightest metal that is workable. It is 45 percent lighter than aluminum and approximately five times as stiff. Its stiffness to weight ratio...

Applications facilitated by tunable lasers fall into two categories: situations in which one or more discrete wavelengths are not available from any single- or multiline fixed-wavelength laser, or...