Robert W. Boyd – författare

Nonlinear optics is the study of the interaction of intense laser light with matter. The third edition of this textbook has been rewritten to conform to the standard SI system of units and includes comprehensively updated material on the latest developments in the field.

The book presents an introduction to the entire field of optical physics and specifically the area of nonlinear optics, covering fundamental issues and applied aspects of this exciting area.

Nonlinear Optics will have lasting appeal to a wide audience of physics, optics, and electrical engineering students, as well as to working researchers and engineers. Those in related fields, such as materials science and chemistry, will also find this book of particular interest.

Nonlinear Optics, Fourth Edition, is a tutorial-based introduction to nonlinear optics that is suitable for graduate-level courses in electrical and electronic engineering, and for electronic and computer engineering departments, physics departments, and as a reference for industry practitioners of nonlinear optics. It will appeal to a wide audience of optics, physics and electrical and electronic engineering students, as well as practitioners in related fields, such as materials science and chemistry.

Nonlinear Optics, Fourth Edition, is a tutorial-based introduction to nonlinear optics that is suitable for graduate-level courses in electrical and electronic engineering, and for electronic and computer engineering departments, physics departments, and as a reference for industry practitioners of nonlinear optics. It will appeal to a wide audience of optics, physics and electrical and electronic engineering students, as well as practitioners in related fields, such as materials science and chemistry.

Self-focusing has been an area of active scientific investigation for nearly 50 years. This book presents a comprehensive treatment of this topic and reviews both theoretical and experimental investigations of self-focusing. This book should be of interest to scientists and engineers working with lasers and their applications.

From a practical point of view, self-focusing effects impose a limit on the power that can be transmitted through a material medium. Self-focusing also can reduce the threshold for the occurrence of other nonlinear optical processes. Self-focusing often leads to damage in optical materials and is a limiting factor in the design of high-power laser systems. But it can be harnessed for the design of useful devices such as optical power limiters and switches. At a formal level, the equations for self-focusing are equivalent to those describing Bose-Einstein condensates and certain aspects of plasma physics and hydrodynamics. There is thus a unifying theme between nonlinear optics and these other disciplines.

One of the goals of this book is to connect the extensive early literature on self-focusing, filament-ation, self-trapping, and collapse with more recent studies aimed at issues such as self-focusing of fs pulses, white light generation, and the generation of filaments in air with lengths of more than 10 km. It also describes some modern advances in self-focusing theory including the influence of beam nonparaxiality on self-focusing collapse. This book consists of 24 chapters. Among them are three reprinted key landmark articles published earlier. It also contains the first publication of the 1964 paper that describes the first laboratory observation of self-focusing phenomena with photographic evidence.