Customer Reviews

Laser Electronics (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book uses math extensively to describe lasers ( granted math IS necessary). The book assumes you have a very good background in the subject material already. Still, not a bad book to have on the shelf to look in if you have some need for a deeper look at lasers. This is a book for people already advanced in the their understanding of lasers who seek further advancement. This is not an introductory book.

The book will work for the student who is sufficiently prepared in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism. If one were to learn laser physics without the background of these classes, then they would be doing themselves a great disservice.

The book covers lots of the "bare-bones" topics essential to understanding lasers. However, the book comes to a screeching halt when advanced derivations need to be completed, leaving it up to the reader to figure it out. The book does have extensive reference lists at the end of each chapter to supplement those deficiencies.

Unfortunately there will not be a future edition to this book. This book is probably the best fit for a senior undergraduate course and not a graduate course (Yariv is probably a better fit at this conjuncture). The senior undergraduate will have to work hard in order to get the most out of this book!

This book is too hard for senior undergrad. student. It is better for advanced grad. student and sr. engineers.

I agree with the comments about poor printing! I just purchased this textbook brand new (softcover), and the printing is horrible (as described in other reviews -- inconsistent margins, slanted & cropped covers, etc). In addition, the printing is exclusively black & white, thus photographs in the book look horrible (not even printed with half-tone), and the text has that "not-enough-ink-on-the-stamp" look to it. My first impression was that I was the unfortunate recipient of a cheap knock-off that an unscrupulous seller was peddling for full price. But apparently others are having this problem too. I ordered through Amazon.com, but my order was fulfilled by "oldbookcase," and was supposed to ship from CA, but it actually shipped via DHL from Taiwan. So, this added to my suspicion about a knock-off. I can't imagine this is the way a publisher like Prentice Hall is shipping the book. However, in the distant past (about 12 years ago) the same publisher (Prentice Hall) pulled the exact same low-quality printing trick with an Electromagnetics textbook. In that case, the whole class bought the low quality book from the university bookstore. When the author (who was our professor) saw the quality of the printing, he was outraged and showed us a much higher quality hard cover version that the publisher was supposed to print. Of course we still had to pay full price. So, are there cheap knock-offs floating around, or is Prentice Hall just a cheap publisher? I don't know, but either way BUYER BEWARE with this book! If you're a student like me, and the instructor has mandated this textbook, then I wish you good luck!

Reads more like a technical manual than anything else. Does not provide much background knowledge. If it wasn't for the professor explaining problems in this book, I would not have an clue about where this book was going. Not a good college textbook at all.

The definitive work on laser engineering. A good reference for all things laser. It's also a pretty good read, for a textbook. A copy of this probably belongs on the bookshelf of anybody in the laser/photonics field. There are many errors in it, for example the Einstein A coefficient listed for the Ne laser transition, so numbers should be double checked against other references.

The layout of this book is very pleasant. Nice, clean typography. The presentation is informal without sacrificing accuracy. However, the author seems to have a bad habit. When the explanation is straightforward (ie the reader can probably figure it out on his/her own), he does a fine job of explaining. When explanations are really needed, he relegates them to the problems. For example, in the sections dealing with the density matrix formalism, he assigns in the general formulation a characteristic decay constant to each energy level. So when it comes to working out the two-level problem, he should explain why he can justifiably "simplify" the problem by assigning a single decay time constant to the population difference between the two levels, instead of perserving the two different decay constants. This is one of the more subtle points in the whole density matrix presentation, yet he weasels out of the situation by leaving it to the problems section. The same pattern is repeated in the part where a comparison between the results of rate equations and density matrix are made. When it comes time to really point out the reason for the validity of the rate equations, he relegates it to the problems again. This is unfortunate, since a proper explanation would clearly demonstrate true insight into the physics.

I actually can't believe they are selling the book as is. The alignment of the printing is awful! The cover is not only crooked, but the title is cut off both on the front cover and back cover. All the left-hand pages have a huge margin on the outside and tiny margin on the inside, making them difficult to read. For such an expensive textbook, you would think it might go through some kind of quality control process. Shame on Amazon for selling such a poor quality product.

This book is definately not for the novice. This book covers a large amount of material in its 777 pages. I got this book as an undergraduate for an advanced optics survey course. It was a little sparse on the explanations for an undergraduate. In graduate school however, this text has come in handy a number of times to fill in the gaps from other books or in heavy-duty problem solving. His coverage of gain saturation, broadening and line-widths I thought were especially usefull, as well as his coverage of the ABCD matrices. All in all, a must-have for your optics bookshelf.

I recieved this book two days after I ordered it with the standard shipping charges.