Photonics Handbook

Electrical engineers are very familiar with the effects of shot noise, thermal noise, flicker noise and crosstalk, and recognize how these effects can reduce the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in their...

Optical design software allows the user to develop a configuration of optical elements that manipulate the trajectory of light for the purposes of creating an image, illuminating a target, coupling...

Infrared system design is not, like some circuit design, a synthetic process. One cannot start by stating the problem and proceeding in an orderly fashion to a final solution. Rather, we guess a...

The basic difference between the household mirror and the optical mirror is that one is coated on the back surface and the other is coated on the front. For optical applications, a front-surface...

Simple Meniscus Lens The simple meniscus lens is almost universally used in inexpensive cameras. To get an image of good quality it must be used with a separate aperture stop, reducing the...

To Isaac Newton the problem was clear, and in 1704 he realized the effects of atmospheric turbulence on image formation. Just as heat waves shimmering above a hot patch of ground can distort our...