Progress in Optics

When Faraday performed the very first experiments on electromagnetic effects, which form the very foundation of modern civilization since virtually everything electrical utilizes them, he was asked of what use his experiments were. He is said to have replied: "What is the use of a baby?" That reply might also be given to those who asked what was the use of basic research which resulted in the development of the laser and holography. Brigadier General Leo A.Kiley, Commander, Office of Aerospace Research, USAF, in his remarks before the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers at the opening ceremony of the Seminar on Holography held at San Francisco, California, in May 1968, declared, "It has been said that in the twenty-first century at least half of the jobs that will exist then do not exist today. But be that as it may, I am sure that holography will be common place. " And later "Even in its embryonic state today, the concept of holography is providing real world applications to the scientific community and I feel that continued rapid growth can be predicted." Now, only three years after these statements, the development of holography is extraordinary on the scientific side and very promising from the point of view of proven and potential applica tions. Holography looks like an emerging technique, a valuable tool for engineers.

This 1996 book is an expanded edition of one of the best known introductions to optical holography.

The conference, held at the U. of Rochester in June 1989, was a sequel to five earlier meetings in this series, held in 1960, 1966, 1972, 1977 and 1983. This volume contains abbreviated versions of most of the 252 papers presented, addressing such topics as laser spectroscopy, photon statistics, pha

With contributions by numerous experts

This volume contains ten lectures presented in the series ULB Lectures in Nonlinear Optics at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles during the period October 28 to November 4, 1991. A large part of the first six lectures is taken from material prepared for a book of somewhat larger scope which will be published,by Springer under the title Quantum Statistical Methods in Quantum Optics. The principal reason for the early publication of the present volume concerns the material contained in the last four lectures. Here I have put together, in a more or less systematic way, some ideas about the use of stochastic wavefunctions in the theory of open quantum optical systems. These ideas were developed with the help of two of my students, Murray Wolinsky and Liguang Tian, over a period of approximately two years. They are built on a foundation laid down in a paper written with Surendra Singh, Reeta Vyas, and Perry Rice on waiting-time distributions and wavefunction collapse in resonance fluorescence [Phys. Rev. A, 39, 1200 (1989)]. The ULB lecture notes contain my first serious atte~pt to give a complete account of the ideas and their potential applications. I am grateful to Professor Paul Mandel who, through his invitation to give the lectures, stimulated me to organize something useful out of work that may, otherwise, have waited considerably longer to be brought together.

An intermediate course in optics, this volume explores both experimental and theoretical concepts, offering a practical knowledge of geometrical optics with a minimum of mathematical detail. 1958 edition.