Customer Reviews

Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids, Five-Volume Set, Volume 1-5: Handbook of Thermo-Optic Coefficients of Optical Materials with Applications (v. 1-5)

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I've used Palik & Ghosh as an occasional reference work for years, because it's very good, and has chapters on most of the materials I've needed to work with--metals, silicon, and oxide dielectrics of one sort or another. Obviously a lot of work went into it, and it's a pretty specialized business, measuring and tabulating optical properties. I'd give it 5 stars for content, no doubt about it--an orchid for the editors: for their part of the deal they deserve our praise and thanks.

The set gets about one star for value, because it's priced like a last-minute airline ticket--those who need it sufficiently badly will pay. The publishers want something getting on for a grand for 5 books, and *two and a half grand* for the same thing in software, which costs nothing to reproduce! For most people, the abbreviated tables in recent editions of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics are better than good enough, though it would be great to be able to afford Palik and Ghosh.

If the price ever comes down by a factor of three, I'd probably buy the books, but it would take a factor of 10 before I'd consider the software.