Wordtrade.com
Technology

Optics

Handbook of Optics Third Edition, 5 Volume Set by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional) The most comprehensive and up-to-date optics resource available

Prepared under the auspices of the Optical Society of America, the five carefully architected and cross-referenced volumes of the Handbook of Optics, Third Edition, contain everything a student, scientist, or engineer requires to actively work in the field. From the design of complex optical systems to world-class research and development methods, this definitive publication provides unparalleled access to the fundamentals of the discipline and its greatest minds.

Individual chapters are written by the world's most renowned experts who explain, illustrate, and solve the entire field of optics. Each volume contains a complete chapter listing for the entire Handbook, extensive chapter glossaries, and a wealth of references. This pioneering work offers unprecedented coverage of optics data, techniques, and applications.

• Volume I covers geometrical and physical optics, polarized light, components, and instruments.
• Volume II covers design, fabrications, testing, sources, detectors, radiometry, and photometry.
• Volume III, all in full color, covers vision and vision optics.
• Volume IV covers optical properties of materials, nonlinear optics, and quantum optics.
• Volume V covers atmospheric optics, modulators, fiber optics, and x-ray and neutron optics.

Visit www.HandbookofOpticsOnline.com to search all five volumes and download a comprehensive index.

The third edition of the handbook of optics is designed to pull together the dramatic developments in both the basic and applied aspects of the field of optics while retaining the archival, reference book value of a handbook. This means that it is much more extensive than either the first edition, published in 1978, or the second edition, with volumes 1 and 2 appearing in 1995 and volumes 3 and 4 and 2001. In order to cover the greatly expanded field of optics, the handbook now appears in five volumes, with over 100 author and teams contributing to the work.

Volume 1 is devoted to the fundamentals, components, and instruments that make optics possible. Volume 2 contains chapters on the design, fabrication, testing, sources of light, detection, and a new section devoted to radiometry and photometry. Volume 3 concerns of vision optics only and is printed in entirely in color. In volume 4 of there are chapters on the optical properties of materials, nonlinear, quantum and molecular optics. Volume 5 has extensive sections on fiber optics and x-ray and neutron optics, along with shorter sections on measurements, modulators, and atmospheric optical properties and turbulence. Several pages of color inserts are provided where appropriate to aid the reader. A purchaser of the print version of any volume of the handbook will be able to download a digital version containing all the material in that volume in PDF format to one computer. The combined in the next for all five volumes can be downloaded from www.handbookofopticsonline.com .

The topics selected for the handbook by the editors were considered well developed enough to be considered for archival treatment. New chapters were included on topics that had reached the stage since the second edition. Existing chapters from the second edition were updated as warranted. In selecting subjects to include, the editors also selected subjects to leave out. The criterion applied was 1. a specific application of optics rather than a core science or technology and 2. a subject in which the role of optics was peripheral to the central issue addressed. While applications of objects are mentioned in the chapters there is in the handbook to include separate chapters devoted to all the major it uses of optics in today’s world. The third edition of the handbook of optics is designed so that it concentrates on the print symbols of optics that make applications possible.

Handbook of Optics, Third Edition Volume I: Geometrical and Physical Optics, Polarized Light, Components and Instruments by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional)

Volumes one and two are devoted primarily to the basic concepts of optics and optical phenomena, sometimes called classical optics. This includes interference, the diffraction, coherence theory, and a scattering. A new chapter on tools and applications of coherence theory has been added. A several chapters section follows devoted to issues of polarized light. A chapter on polarimentry has been updated and its content on the Mueller matrices now appears in a separate chapter by that title. Next there are chapters on components such as lenses, afocal systems, nondispersive and dispersive prisms, and special optics that include integrated, miniature and micro-, binary, and gradient index optics. Finally there are several chapters on instruments. They include cameras and camera lenses, microscopes, reflective and catatioptric objectives, scanners, spectrometers, interferonmeters, xerographic systems and optical disk the data storage.

Handbook of Optics, Third Edition Volume II: Design, Fabrication and Testing, Sources and Detectors, Radiometry and Photometry by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional)

Volume 2 of the handbook of optics is a continuation of volume 1. It begins with optical system design and covers a first-quarter layout aberration curves, design software, specifications and tolerances, component mounting, stray light control, and thermal compensation techniques. Optical fabrication and testing are discussed next. A new chapter on the use of orthonormal polynomials in optical design and testing has been added. Such a polynomial representing balanced astigmatism is illustrated on the cover of the volume. The section on sources includes different types of lasers, laser stabilization, laser theory, and a discussion of ultrashort laser sources. Laser-emitting diodes including the new high brightness LEDs are presented. Artificial sources of life for both the laboratory and field are described along with a discussion of light standards calibration. The section on detectors includes high speed and thermal detectors along with an analysis of signal detection. Imaging using a film, detector arrays, and image tubes is discussed. This volume ends with a section on radiometry and photometry. Two new chapters have been added in this area. One is on the spectrotadiometry and the other is on lighting and applications.

Handbook of Optics, Third Edition Volume III: Vision and Vision Optics by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional)

Volume 3 includes such topics relating to the vision in the eye which are applicable to, or relate to the study of optics. For reasons we do not understand fully, in recent years there seems to have been a tendency for the optics and in vision science communities (in previous times was known as the physiological optics community) to drift somewhat apart. Physiological optics has become a meaningful component within optics during the latter part of the 19th century. As but one example, we urge interested readers to read H. von Helmholtz’s masterful three volume handbook of physiological optics, third edition in the Southhall translation from the 1920s. Also it should be noted that Allvar Gullstrand received the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine in 1911 for his work on the model artists, which was a direct application of thick linens theory. Gullstrandwas not only a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Uppsala, but was also a professor of physiological and physical optics at the same institution. He also added five new chapters to the first volume of Helmholtz’s traces published in 1909. Not only is this a remarkable scientific work, but much of it remains applicable today! The simple fact that in that the two groups, optical science and vision science need each other, or, alternatively, are effectively “joined at the hip”. Last year we seek to provide a broad view of vision, mission processes, and discussions of areas where vision science interacts with the ever broader field of optics.

Obviously, no treatments such as this one can be complete, but the editors have tried here to present applicable topics in an orderly manner. In the current edition, the editors have taken a wider ranging view of vision and its relationship with optics. In particular, in recent years, we have seen a rapid increase in interest in new technologies and applications in the areas of adaptive optics (AO), scanning laser ophthalmology (SLO), and optical coherence tomography (OCT), among others. Separately, there has been rapid growth in refractive surgery (LASIK, etc.), use of intra-ocular lenses (IOLs), and other forms of visual corrections. And we do not overlook the incredible expansion of information technology, the broad utilization of computer, video, and other forms of displays which have been employed in major applications with associated implications and vision.

The editors call the reader’s attention to three cover illustrations. Among the many choices one picture has historical value. It is a photograph taken of a modern young lady viewing herself and an obsidian mirror in bright sunlight. That obsidian mirror carried twice for extended time periods in its history is about 8000 years old. And it has one of a number of oldest known mirrors. These items are displayed at the Museum of Anatolian civilizations, located in Ankara, Turkey and/or at the Konya Museum in Konya which is in the South Central Valley of Turkey and is located near the dig site. This photograph falls into the evolving field of archaeological optics (not treated in this edition). The photograph makes us reconsider the quality of the image in that Stone Age mirror which was manufactured during the Mesolithic Period. A second figure displays a wave-guide modal pattern obtained radiating from a single human or primate photoreceptor in the early 1960s. there is further discussion of this topic in chapter 8 on biological waveguides. The third figure is of a human parafoveal cone photoreceptors taken from the living human eye of Austin Rooda (see chapter 15). It was obtained using adaptive optics technology. The long, seen as red, middle, seen as green, and the short, seen as blue, wavelength absorbing pigments contained in the is individual cone photoreceptors are readily defined.

Please note, with the formation of the section on radiometry and photometry in this edition, the chapter addressing such measurements as they pertain to visual optics were relocated to volume 2. A new relatively brief chapter on radiometry and photometryassociated with the Stiles-Crawford effect of the first kind, see Chapter 9 has been added. It was added after the chapter on biological waveguides, chapter 8. This chapter are fitted more logically there, where the Stiles-Crawford effects are discussed, then and a new section on radiometry and photometry. This new chapter raises issues suggesting that revision is needed for specification of the visual stimulus (retinal illuminance) in certain test situations, particularly in the entrance pupil of the eye is larger than about three mm in diameter.

The outline of the missing section of this edition offers the reader a logical progression of topics addressed. Volume 3 leads off with an extensive chapter on optics of the eye. This material has been considerably expanded from the earlier version in the second edition other oft offers reproduce their earlier chapter on visual performance and on psychophysical methods used in test vision. There is a new chapter on visual acuity and hyperacuity. Another chapter is on optical generation of the visual stimulus. And a chapter on the Maxwellian view has been updated for this edition. V6 chapters as a group provide a valuable introduction to the volume as a whole. As in other sections of this handbook all materials are written to be read by first-year graduate student level.

The next set of topics includes a broad and discussion of several specific areas of interest chapter 7 addresses or radiation hazards associated with vision and vision testing. Chapter 8 addresses biological waveguides. This rapidly broadening subject grew out of work on the Stiles-Crawford effects, that is, the directional sensitivity of the retina, first reported in 1933 chapter 9 speaks to issues associated with the specification of the visual stimulus and the integration of the Stiles-Crawford effect of the first kind (SCE-1). Bees are meaningful matters associated with photometric and radiometric characterization of the visual stimuli.

Chapters 10 and 11 address issues associated with color vision and colorimetry. The associate editors felt strongly that it was necessary to expand coverage of these topics in this third edition of the handbook. The chapter on refraction and refracted of techniques was prepared by a new author, he also broaden the topic covered with those treated in the second edition. Other authors updated their coverage of binocular vision and a discussion of optics division and aging eye, a very important topic due to the rapid increase in aging of populations occurring worldwide.

The next portion of this volume addresses new/emerging technology. The initial chapter discusses the rapidly evolving field of adaptive optics (AO). The reader will find that AO techniques are being combined with other emerging techniques in order to enhance the utility of instruments, those both in development and now appearing on the market. Included are scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO), and optical coherence tomography (OCT), and flood illumination. That is these emerging technologies offer additional unique advantages. Interestingly SLO technology originated some years ago in the laboratory. Optical coherence, tomography (OCT), a powerful new tool used in ophthalmic examinations both for the study of the anterior and posterior segments of the eye is discussed at length in Chapter 18. New techniques for refractive surgery have been addressed as well as the consideration of confocal imaging of the cornea in chapter 17. The current state of graded index of refraction in the islands is discussed in Chapter 19. And the optics of interocular lenses and contact lenses is discussed to wrap up the section.

Clearly we cannot overlook imaging and display problems associated with modern optical science. Thus from an information processing point of view as applied to optical problems is considered in chapter 22. Next the chapter on visual problems and the needs of the observer when using computers – often for long periods of time is dressed the discussion of human vision and electronic imaging which is a major issue in modern environment is discussed as well as visual problems associated with heads-up displays the latter problems have been a particular challenge in the aviation industry.

Thus in this central volume to the handbook of optics the editors have tried to reasonably cover the waterfront of interactions between human/eye and instruments (human engineering/ergonomics, if one prefers). The editors have sought to address directly issues related to optics per se. These changes have resulted in a longer volume than in the past. So saying, it should be emphasized that the material is not encyclopedic, that is we did not wish more material online movements as well as subject as aniseikonia or problems encountered by individuals with unequal image sizes in their two eyes. Relating human to optical instruments or images presented in no small thing from a number of points of view. So saying, the editors sought to achieve a reasonable balance and topics presented and of the lengths of these discussions. Obviously there are always constraints of time, space and availability of authors.

Handbook of Optics, Third Edition Volume IV: Optical Properties of Materials, Nonlinear Optics, Quantum Optics by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional)

Volume 4 is a compendium of articles on properties, nonlinear optics, and quantum and molecular optics. As with other parts of the handbook, the articles were chosen for their archival nature. Clearly optical properties of materials fit into the archival category well. This volume devotes a large number of pages to explain and describe optical properties of water, crystals and glasses, metals, semiconductors, solids in general, thin films and coatings including optical blacks, photonic bandgap materials. These articles have been updated to include new materials and understanding developed since the previous edition including among other things, advances in thin-film materials. Nonlinear optics is a mature field, but with many relatively new applications much of them driven by advances in optical materials. Areas covered here are frequently conversion via a second order nonlinearities including optical parametric oscillators, third order nonlinearities of two-photon absorption and non-linear refraction, as well as stimulated Raman and Brillouin scattering, photorefractive materials and devices, coherent optical transients, electromagnetically induced transparency, optical limiting, laser induced damage. Nonlinear optical processes for ultrashort pulses are included in volume 2. Clearly advances in fiber optic telecommunications have been greatly impacted by nonlinear optics, thus much of the work in this field is included in fiber optic chapter of volume 5. The new chapter on laser induced damage is a much needed addition to the handbook covering a problem from the earliest days of the laser. Chapters on quantum optics in general covers some more modern aspects of optics that have become archival: laser cooling and trapping, where multiple Nobel prizes have received been awarded; High-field physics that results from availability of the extreme irradiance produced by lasers; slow light, topics related to being able to slow and even stop light propagation in materials; and correlated states of quantum entanglement, the unusual behavior of quantum systems where optics has played a pivotal role in its understanding as well as some interesting applications in secure communication/cryptography. The chapter on quantum theory of laser is however included in volume 2.

Handbook of Optics, Third Edition Volume V: Atmospheric Optics, Modulators, Fiber Optics, X-Ray and Neutron Optics by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional)

Volume 5 begins with measurements, atmospheric optics, and optical modulators. There are chapters on scatterometers, spectroscopic measurements, transmission through the atmosphere, imaging through turbulence, and adaptive optics to overcome distortions as well as chapters on electro-and acousto-optic modulators and liquid crystals spatial light modulators. These are followed by two main parts of this volume – fiber optics and x-ray and neutron optics.

Optical fiber technology is truly an interdisciplinary field, incorporating aspects of solid-state physics, materials science, and electrical engineering, among others in this section on fiber optics, the editors introduce the fundamentals of optical fibers and cable assemblies, optical connectors, light sources, detectors, and related components. Assembly of the building blocks into optical networks required discussion of the unique requirements of digital versus analog links and telecommunication versus data communication networks. Issues such as optical link budget calculations, dispersion-or attenuation-limited links, and compliance with relevant industry standards are all addressed. Since one of the principal advantages of fiber optics is the ability to create high bandwidth, long distance interconnections, they also discuss the design and use of optical fiber amplifiers for different wavelength transmission windows. This leads to an understanding of the different network components which can be fabricated for optical fiber itself, such as splitters, combiners, fiber Bragg gratings, and other passive optical networking elements. The authors then provide a treatment of other important devices, including fiber sensors, fibers optimized for use in infrared, micro-optic components for fiber networks and fiber lasers. Note that micro-optics for other applications are covered in volume 1 of the handbook. This section includes chapters on photonic crystal fibers (for a broader treatment of photonic bandgap materials, see the discussion in volume 4) and on the growing applications of optical fiber networks.

Part five of this volume discusses a variety of x-ray and neutron optics and their use in a wide range of applications. First there is an introduction to the use and properties of x-rays. It begins with a short chapter summarizing x-ray interactions with optics, followed by a discussion of coherence effects, and then illustrations of application constraints to the use of optics in seven applications, ranging from materials analysis to medicine, astronomy, and chip manufacturing. Because modeling is an important tool for both optics development and tool design the discussion continues with a discussion of optics simulations, followed by tables of materials property in the x-ray regime. The next sections are devoted to a discussion of the three classes of x-ray optics first is covered the refracted, interference and diffracted of optics, including ratings, crystals (flat, bent, and polarizing), zone plates, Laue lense. It also includes a discussion of multilayered coatings, which are based on interference, but often added to reflective x-ray optics. Reflective optics is a topic next considered. Since reflective optics in the x-ray regime are used primarily in grazing incidence, the first three chapters cover the theory of image formation, aberrations, and meteorology of grazing incidence mirrors. This is followed with descriptions of mirrors for astronomy and microscopy, adaptive optics for high heat load synchrotron beam lines, glass capillary reflective optics, also generally used for beam lines, and array objects such as multifoils, pore optics, polycapillaries. The best choice of optic for a particular function depends on the application requirements, but is also influenced by the properties of the available sources and detectors next is described six different types of x-ray sources. This is followed by a section which includes an introduction to detectors and in-depth discussions of imaging and spectral detectors. Finally there is a section that describes the similarities and differences in the use of comparable octave technologies with neutrons.

The chapters are generally aimed at the graduate student, though practicing scientists and engineers will find them suitable as references on the topics discussed. Each chapter includes additional references for further study.

 

 

Opto-Mechatronics by Hyungsuck Cho (CRC) Includes errata sheet, Optomechatronics takes an integrated approach to combine the fields of optical and mechatronics engineering. The author provides a multidisciplinary view from the design stage of engineering systems that result from the fusion of optical elements with mechatronics elements. He explores how the integration of optomechatronics components can create new value and functions for the engineering systems under consideration. In the final section, practical optomechatronic systems are richly illustrated to aid readers in understanding how effectively optomechatronic technology can be utilized to produce new functionalities and enhance performance.

In recent years, optical technology has been increasingly incorporated into mechatronic technology, and vice versa. The consequence of the technology marriage has led to the evolution of most engineered products, machines, and systems towards high precision, downsizing, multifunctionalities and multicomponents embedded characteristics. This integrated engineering field is termed optomechatronic technology. The technology is the synergistic combination of optical, mechanical, electronic, and computer engineering, and therefore is multidisciplinary in nature, thus requiring the need to view this from somewhat different aspects and through an integrated approach. However, not much systematic effort for nurturing students and engineers has been made in the past by stressing the importance of the multitechnology integration.

The goal of this book is for it to enable the reader to learn how the multiple technologies can be integrated to create new and added value and function for the engineering systems under consideration. To facilitate this objective, the material brings together the fundamentals and underlying concepts of this optomechatronic field into one text. The book therefore presents the basic elements of the engineering fields ingredient to optomechatronics, while putting emphasis on the integrated approach. It has several distinct features as a text which make it differ somewhat from most textbooks or monographs in that it attempts to provide the background, definition, and characteristics of optomechatronics as a newly defined, important field of engineering, an integrated view of various disciplines, view of system-oriented approach, and a combined view of macro–micro worlds, the combination of which links to the creative design and manufacture of a wide range of engineering products and systems.

To this end a variety of practical system examples adopting optomechatronic principles are illustrated and analyzed with a view to identifying the nature of optomechatronic technology. The subject matter is therefore wide ranging and includes optics, machine vision, fundamental of mechatronics, feedback control, and some application aspects of micro-opto-electromechanical system (MOEMs). With the review of these fundamentals, the book shows how the elements of optical, mechanical, electronic, and microprocessors can be effectively put together to create the fundamental functionalities essential for the realization of optomechatronic technology. Emphasizing the interface between the relevant disciplines involving the integration, it derives a number of basic optomechatronic units. The book then goes on in the final part to deal, from the integrated perspectives, with the details of practical optomechatronic systems composed of and operated by such basic components.

The introduction presents some of the motivations and history of the optomechatronic technology by reviewing the technological evolution of optoelectronics and mechatronics. It then describes the definition and fundamental concept of the technology that are derivable from the nature of practical optomechatronic systems.

Chapter 2 reviews the fundamentals of optics in some detail. It covers geometric optics and wave optics to provide the basis for the fusion of optics and mechatronics.

Chapter 3 treats the overview of machine vision covering fundamentals of image acquisition, image processing, edge detection, and camera calibration. This technology domain is instrumental to generation of optomechatronic technology.

Chapter 4 presents basic mechatronic elements such as sensor, signal conditioning, actuators and the fundamental concepts of feedback control. This chapter along with Chapter 2 outlines the essential parts that make optomechatronics possible.

Chapter 5 provides basic considerations for the integration of optical, mechanical, and electrical signals, and the concept of basic functional modules that can create optomechatronic integration and the interface for such integration.

In Chapter 6, basic optomechatronic functional units that can be generated by integration are treated in detail. The units are very important to the design of optomechatronic devices and systems, since these produce a variety of functionalities such as actuation, sensing, autofocusing, acoustic-optic modulation, scanning and switching visual feedback control.

Chapter 7 represents a variety of practical systems of optomechatronic nature that obey the fundamental concept of the optomechatronic integration. Among them are laser printers, atomic force microscopes (AFM), optical storage disks, confocal microscopes, digital micromirror devices (DMD) and visual tracking systems.

The main intended audiences of this book are the lower levels of graduate students, academic and industrial researchers. In the case of undergraduate students, it is recommended for the upper level since it covers a variety of disciplines, which, though fundamental, involve various different physical phenomena. On a professional level, this material will be of interest to engineering graduates and research/field engineers who function in interdisciplinary work environments in the fields of design and manufacturing of products, devices, and systems.

Modern Lens Design, 2nd Edition by Warren J. Smith (McGraw-Hill Professional Engineering: McGraw-Hill Professional) A MASTER CLASS IN PRACTICAL ENGINEERING TECHNIQUES AND THE ART OF LENS DESIGN.
In this fully revised and updated Second Edition of Modern Lens Design, optics legend Warren J. Smith leads you through the mechanics of lens design, revealing tested methods for designing top-quality lenses. A paragon of design instruction, this volume offers clear explanations of processes, including the use of market-leading design software. You also get 7 comprehensive worked examples, all new to this edition. With this book in hand, there's no lens an optical engineer -- or an enthusiastic amateur -- can't design.

Warren J. Smith's Modern Lens Design helps you with every aspect of any major lens design project, including:
The prescription: Radii, spacings, materials, EFL, BFL, vertex length, object and image distances, magnification, Petzval radius, wavelength, clear apertures, and more
Rays: The axial-marginal ray and the chief ray
Plotting lens aberrations: Ray intercept plots for axis, 0.5, 0.7, and full field, field curvature, distortion, and lateral color

This text features new and updated lens design tables as well as comprehensive instruction in the lens design process, both traditional and CAD. Beginners and experts alike will turn to this book as the definitive source of lens design techniques time and time again.

LENS DESIGN INSTRUCTION, CHAPTER BY CHAPTER:
Introduction to Lens Design * Lens CAD: Managing the Software * Improving a Design * Cooke Triplet Anastigmats * Reversed Telephoto Lenses * Infrared Systems * Lens Design Tables * Example Designs * Formulary

Unlike the first edition, which was more a collection of lens designs for use in larger projects, the 2nd edition of Modern Lens Design is an optical “how-to.” Delving deep into the mechanics of lens design, optics legend Warren J. Smith reveals time-tested methods for designing top-quality lenses. He deals with lens design software, primarily OSLO, by far the current market leaders, and provides 7 comprehensive worked examples, all new to this edition. With this book in hand, there’s no lens an optical engineer can’t design.

Excerpt: My personal optical design experience has spanned more than five decades. They have been exciting, fascinating, and delightful decades; I have enjoyed each one. During that half century, lens design has changed radically. In the mid-twentieth century, lens design was still a semi-intuitive art, practiced by a few dedicated individuals of great per-severance, knowledge, and skill. And by mid-century most of the clas­sic lens design forms had already been created. To this day, these designs are still the basis of many excellent modern optical systems.

Of course the practice of lens design today is radically different from what it was in the 1940s and 50s. Then, most optical design was done with an electromechanical desk calculator (e.g., Marchant, Frieden, and Monroe), and the raytracing rate, measured in terms of the number of surfaces through which one could trace the path of a ray in a given amount of time, was to the order of one ray surface in about 250s (if one were to work at it continuously through the day). Thus, using the cur-rent dimensions for raytracing speed, one did about 0.004 ray-surfaces per second. And these were only meridional two-dimensional rays, not the three-dimensional general rays ordinarily traced today. A great deal of ingenuity (and elegant theory) went into finding ways to avoid trac­ing any more rays than were absolutely necessary.

Thanks to the modern personal computer or PC, the computing rate has increased almost unbelievably. Today a run-of-the-mill PC is capa­ble of calculating several million ray-surfaces per second; this is about nine or ten orders of magnitude faster. Needless to say the techniques of lens design today differ mightily from those of fifty or sixty years ago. Then, the designer might calculate the derivatives of a few aberrations with respect to a limited number of constructional parameters and solve a small set of simultaneous, linear equations in the course of correcting his lens. These limited calculations were all carefully selected on the basis of theory, experience, and intuition. (Interestingly, one of the very real problems facing designers today is that the computer spews out

numbers so rapidly that it takes strong self-discipline just to make one-self stop and think.)

In modern lens design work, a computer program almost instanta­neously calculates and solves equations which are far more than an order of magnitude more complex and extensive than those cited above. It is not atypical for the computer program to control about 50 lens per­formance characteristics by adjusting the values of some 20 or 30 con­struction parameters of the optical system. These latter numbers imply a design space with 20 or 30 dimensions, a complex space indeed.

There are, however, some real limitations on the power of a so-called automatic lens design program. The typical program proceeds from a given starting design and drives the design to the nearest local optimum, a form at which any small structural changes will degrade the system performance. System performance is judged by a set of calculated char­acteristics defined in a merit function, which would be better termed a defect or error function, since the characteristics in it represent depar­tures from desired values.

Obviously then, the final automatic design solution is completely and uniquely determined by (a) the merit function, (b) the starting design form, and (c) the algorithm by which the computer solves the problem of locating an optimum design form with the minimum value of the merit function.

When the first edition of Modern Lens Design (MLD) was published, there was a great need for a collection of suitable design forms at which to start the design process, and MLD provided almost 300 lens designs for this purpose. These designs were selected not only as starting points, but also as illustrations of important design principles. At the present time the need for sample designs, while still real, is significantly less, largely because most optical design programs now include libraries of lens designs. (These programs also include random search design capa­bilities which permit large changes in lens forms.) For example, all of the lens designs in the first edition of MLD (plus many others) are included in the lens libraries of the optical design program OSLO (a product of Lambda Research Corp.). Another program, LensVIEW by Brian Caldwell, is a compilation of over 30,000 lens designs and patents.

That said, it is (at least it is for me) far more easy and convenient to scan and compare a series of printed design pages than it is to do the same thing on a computer screen (even with the multiwindow capabil­ities of many programs). For this and other reasons this second edition of MLD has retained about half of the original designs and has added some new ones. The reader may also find some additional designs in the works referenced at the end of the book.

The practice of lens design is now essentially an engineering disci­pline. While this book is intended to be self-contained, we deliberately

do not include a lot of derivations, or even the mechanics of exact ray tracing. And as valuable and cherished as they may be in academia, we happily omit any derivations from first principles, Maxwell's equations, or Fermat's principle. These are simply not necessary for a book on lens design. We make one exception to the no "ray tracing" rule, namely for the tracing of paraxial rays, which a lens designer often carries out by hand, or with a programmed pocket calculator. This topic is covered in the Formulary of Chapter 24, along with other valuable and frequently used geometrical optics relationships.

However, there is currently a growing need for a more detailed expo­sition of basic lens design and theory in a single volume. The first edi­tion of MLD was a "companion" volume to the author's Modern Optical Engineering. Several very basic lens design books have recently appeared; some are almost extended user manuals written for a specific design program. This edition of MLD is definitely not intended as a user manual, or as a guide to any specific program. It is an attempt to go well beyond this level by presenting both the basics of, and a more advanced approach to, lens design. The intent is to advise the reader how to get the most from any computer lens design program. To this end, about half of the lens designs in the first edition of MLD have been eliminated to make room for quite a bit of new material.

The text is, as far as possible, completely program neutral. I have tried to make the material regarding design programs as generic as I could, discussing features that are available in almost all commercial soft-ware. I have used OSLO for the design work demonstrated in the text, and for preparing the new figures. (The lens analysis figures in the first edition of MLD were prepared with a customized version of the program GENII, using a new and unique presentation style which is now widely available; for an example, see the OSLO aberration plots herein.)

Most neophyte lens designers very quickly get past the basics and learn to use their computer programs with a high level of proficiency. At this point, what they need most is an answer to the question, "What do I do now?" Much of the new material in this edition is designed to this end and takes the form of actual design projects carried out from scratch, warts and all. (In other words, I have not papered over the blunders I made in the design process.) These designs include a cemented doublet, a triplet anastigmat, a Tessar, a Heliar, a Dogmar, a telephoto, a Schmidt cassegrain, a binocular eyepiece, an apochro­matic triplet, and a landscape lens. Many of these design stories are car­ried out to some length to illustrate all of the possible steps that can be taken to improve a design. Every initial assumption is explained and justified. These design descriptions not only show the basic design approach, but continue on with advanced steps and the rationale for them.

I have surveyed the literature at some length for any design techniques which might have a general applicability (as well as the reported specific use for the writer's specific problem). Some were found in the references listed at the end of the book. For the most part, the design techniques described here are those which I have found to be useful in working with an optimization program. Many of the techniques have been developed or refined during more than two decades of teaching courses in lens design; indeed some of these ideas were suggested or inspired by my students. Other valuable sources were the many infor­mal discussions that I have been fortunate to have with my colleagues.

For better or worse, one can never seem to squeeze all the material that you want into a book. At the manuscript deadline date there is always at least one more feature that you wished there was enough time to develop, write, and include. But I suppose that if there were time, no book would ever be finished.

Surprisingly, there are only a modest number of well-understood and widely utilized principles of optical design. If one can master a thorough understanding of these principles, their effects, and their mechanisms, it is easy to recognize them in existing designs and also easy to apply them to one's own design work. It is the intent here to promote such understanding by presenting both expositions and annotated design examples of these principles.

Readers are free to use the designs in this book as starting points for their own design efforts, or in any other way they see fit. The reader must accept full responsibility for meeting whatever limitations are imposed on the use of these designs by any patent, copyright, or other (whether indicated herein or not). 

The History of the Telescope by Henry C. King (Dover) unabridged republication of the work first published by Charles Griffin & Co., Ltd., High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, 1955. Foreword by Sir Harold Spencer Jones. Preface. 196 black-and-white illustrations. Index. "This book is one that I can heartily recommend."
—Sir Harold Spencer Jones, F. R. S., formerly Astronomer Royal

A model of comprehensive scholarship, The History of the Telescope relates not only the stories of early inventors and astronomers but also the rarely recorded details of the instruments themselves and their makers. This remarkable chronicle covers many fields, including professional and amateur astronomy, optics, glass and lens technology, and the craft of the precision instrument.

Author Henry C. King bases his accounts primarily on first-hand sources—the letters, memoirs, papers, and treatises of the men who worked with telescopes. The great intellects (Roger Bacon, Galileo, Newton) and innovators (Tycho Brahe, Huygens, Hooke, Sir William Herschel) receive their due, along with lesser-known craftsmen and amateurs: the seventeenth-century Italian telescope makers Campani and Divini; the great London instrument artists Graham, Dolland, and Ramsden; and the experimenters Foucault and Brashear, whose contributions to mirror manufacture remain fundamental to all levels of astronomical endeavor. The modern-day successors of these men and their achievements bring this history to its conclusion in the mid-twentieth century, with profiles of the instruments still in use today.

A prime resource on the evolution of the telescope, this volume is magnifi­cently illustrated with nearly 200 portraits, diagrams, and photographs.

Headline 3

insert content here

WT Main | About WT | Review Links | Contact | Review Sources | Search