Springer Handbook of Lasers and Optics

The Springer Handbook of Lasers and Optics provides fast, up-to-date, comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the wide fields of optics and lasers. It is written for daily use in the office or laboratory and offers explanatory text, data, and references needed for anyone working with lasers and optical instruments.

Each chapter or section is authored by respected experts and contains the basic principles, applications and latest information in the field. Among the subjects covered are geometrical and wave optics, linear and nonlinear optics, optical materials and components, detectors, incoherent and all essential types of coherent light sources, generation of ultrashort pulses, spectroscopic techniques, laser safety as well as current trends in such modern areas as quantum optics, femto- and attosecond physics, and nanooptics as well as optics beyond the diffraction limit.

This new edition features numerous updates and additions. Especially 4 new chapters on Fiber Optics, Integrated Optics, Frequency Combs and Interferometry reflect the changes since the first edition.

In addition, major complete updates for the chapters: Optical Materials and Their Properties, Optical Detectors, Nanooptics, and Optics far Beyond the Diffraction Limit

The 25 chapters are grouped into four parts which cover basic principles and materials, fabrication and properties of optical components, coherent and incoherent light sources, and, finally, selected applications and special fields such as terahertz photonics, x-ray optics and holography.

The handbook is written and compiled for physicists, engineers and other scientists at universities and in industrial research who develop and use optical techniques.

Foreword by T.W. Hänsch

Part A Basic Principles and Materials
Chap. 1 Properties of Light
Chap. 2 Geometrical Optics
Chap. 3 Wave Optics
Chap. 4 Nonlinear Optics, Frequency Conversion and Attophysics
Chap. 5 Optical Materials and Their Properties
Chap. 6 Thin Films

Part B Fabrication and Properties of Optical Components
Chap. 7 Optical Design and Design Software
Chap. 8 Advanced Optical Components
Chap. 9 Optical Detectors

Part C Coherent and Incoherent Light Sources
Chap. 10 Incoherent Light Sources
Chap. 11 Lasers and Coherent Light Sources
Chap. 12 Short and Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Part D Selected Applications and Special Fields
Chap. 13 Optical and Spectroscopic Techniques
Chap. 14 Fiber Optics
Chap. 15 Integrated Optics
Chap. 16 Interferometry
Chap. 17 Frequency Combs
Chap. 18 Quantum Optics
Chap. 19 Nanooptics
Chap. 20 Optics far Beyond the Diffraction Limit
Chap. 21 Terahertz Photonics and Applications
Chap. 22 X-Ray Optics
Chap. 23 Atmospheric Optics
Chap. 24 Holography and Optical Data Storage
Chap. 25 Laser Safety

Acknowledgements.- About the Authors.- Subject Index

Frank Träger is a Full Professor of Experimental Physics and Head of the Interdisciplinary Center for Nanostructure Science and Technology – CINSaT at the University of Kassel, Germany.

Frank Träger received the diploma in physics from the University of Heidelberg where he continued his research to earn a Ph.D. in physics in 1974. Following his habilitation, he joined the IBM Almaden Research Center in San José, California, as a guest scientist from 1981 to 1982 and for several sabbaticals until 1986.

Since 1986, he has been an associate Professor at the Institute of Physics of the University of Heidelberg, and since September 1990 a full Professor in the Physics Department of the University of Kassel, Germany. His current research interests are the preparation and characterization of metal nanoparticles and self-assembled functional films, nonlinear optical phenomena, the study and application of nonthermal desorption and ablation phenomena, ultrafast electron dynamics on the femtosecond timescale and, last but not least, imaging of DNA by scanning probe microscopies. In his experiments, tunable laser radiation plays an essential role.

Frank Träger serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics published by Springer-Verlag. He is a Corresponding Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and of acatech, Konvent für Technikwissenschaften der Union der deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften e.V.