Optics and Photonics: An Introduction [Hardcover]

F. Graham Smith (Author), Terry A. King (Author), Dan Wilkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2007 | ISBN-10: 047001783X | ISBN-13: 978-0470017838 | Edition: 2

The Second Edition of this successful textbook provides a clear, well-written introduction to both the fundamental principles of optics and the key aspects of photonics to show how the subject has developed in the last few decades, leading to many modern applications. Optics and Photonics: An Introduction, Second Edition thus provides a complete undergraduate course on optics in a single integrated text, and is an essential resource for all undergraduate physics, science and engineering students taking a variety of optics based courses.

Specific changes for this edition include:

• New material on modern optics and photonics
• Rearrangement of chapters to give a logical progression, comprising groups of chapters on geometric optics, wave optics and photonics
• Many more worked examples and problems
• Substantial revisions to chapters on Holography, Lasers and the Interaction of Light with Matter

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The second edition of this successful textbook provides a clear, well-written introduction to both the fundamental principles of optics and the key aspects of photonics to show how the subject has developed in the last few decades, leading to many modern applications. The book thus provides a complete undergraduate course on optics in a single integrated text. The new edition has been completely updated and specific important changes include:

• New material on modern optics and photonics.
• A rearrangement of chapters to give a logical progression comprising groups of chapters on geometric optics, wave optics and photonics. 
• Many more worked examples and problems.

In addition, substantial revisions have been made to chapters on holography, lasers and the interaction of light with matter. For this edition Smith and King have been joined by a new co-author, Professor Dan Wilkins from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who has many years experience of teaching optics courses. 

This balanced, practical, modern introduction to optics and photonics and will prove invaluable to students taking optics courses within science and engineering. 

About the Author

Sir Francis Graham Smith. Old School House, Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9PH, UK
Now retired, Graham Smith has had a distinguished career in radio astronomy having held the post of Astronomer Royal 1982 – 1990, and most recently was Langworthy Professor of Physics at Manchester University.

Professor Terry King. School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Currently head of the Laser Photonics Group, Terry King has many years experience in research, teaching and consultancy.

Professor Daniel Wilkins. Department of Physics, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE 68182-0266, USA
Dan Wilkins holds the Milo Bail Chair of Physics at Nebraska and has taught optics and a wide variety of undergraduate courses for many years. His main research focus is general relativity theory.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 516 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (June 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047001783X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470017838
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,224,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not helpful at all, a 100-page optics book works better than it, December 21, 2009

By 

Zhengxin Tong "jzt" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Optics and Photonics: An Introduction (Paperback)

I'm a graduate student, usually research on electromagnetics; recently changed to optics and photonics. The book of Bahaa was out in library, so I picked up this, wanted to give it a try.
One word - HORRIBLE.
Like what's been written in a previous review, the author just tried to pile up a bunch of hard-to-understand concepts in the book; every subsection of the book is relatively short; no detailed derivation, just results and then another results; I'm not a native English speaker, but never had a problem reading a well-written book, but the explanation in this book is just confusing. Even in my most familiar part - electromagnetic optics, a lot of the things in there are hard to understand for me; For the very basic stuff like "wavefront", the author didn't give a clear definition; useless figure illustrations.

After briefly going through the book, I have to read some other books to understand what it's talking about. Apparently not a good book for self-studying.

The cover looks cool, but NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very poor text, November 23, 2009

By 

Aeronomer "Aeronomer" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Optics and Photonics: An Introduction (Paperback)

Just finishing up a semester-long, junior-level optics course using this book. It is absolutely horrid. The students often find the exposition incomprehensible (as do I). The authors frequently pull results out of thin air when a few lines of derivation/explanation would have made things clear. The problem sets are generally useless as they are routinely too difficult or too easy. The choice of topics is over-reaching. Care should be taken with fundamentals, then applications and variations on a theme can be introduced. This book makes the fundamentals a mystery, then piles on one topic after another before the end of the chapter. I can't think of anything good to say about this book. No real online support. Even the diagrams are frequently a head-scratching affair. It should be discontinued. What garbage. I wish my students could get their money back.