Best optical physics books according to redditors
We found 14 Reddit comments discussing the best optical physics books. We ranked the 11 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 14 Reddit comments discussing the best optical physics books. We ranked the 11 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Look honey if you don't understand any of this don't bother, you'll never make it.
...
...
...
Hey just kidding, best of luck. You really have to practice and read and read and read, you'll get it someday. I want to do some research on light-matter interaction and I'm reading this book at the moment. I suggest you read chapters 2 and 4, they offer a nice discussion.
Hi, I'm very pleased to hear that you are interested in lens design and optics. Although I think I'd be able to help you out more if I knew your motivation and end goals, here are a few suggestions:
For books, I recommend two. First, Field Guide to Lens Design by Bently/Olson if you're just starting out, it is not math heavy and cheaper than most textbooks.
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Design-Press-Guides/dp/0819491640/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487712393&sr=8-1&keywords=field+guide+to+lens+design
Another book, Field Guide to Geometrical Optics by Greivenkamp if you're willing to put in the math and learn the theory. It's still a simple book though, I'm a lens designer and I use the book regularly because it is a great reference.
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Geometrical-Optics-SPIE/dp/0819452947/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487712411&sr=8-1&keywords=field+guide+to+geometrical+optics
If you want Videos, the Youtube channel Optics Realm are thorough. Skip the Zemax tutorial and go to the Optics tutorials.
https://www.youtube.com/user/opticsrealm
And finally, there is a great set of slides at slideshare. However, some things may be lost if you don't have Dave speaking to you.
http://www.slideshare.net/operacrazy/camera-lens-talk
Good luck learning, and don't hesitate to ask me for follow-up. Like I said at the beginning, I think I can help you out more if you can tell me: why did get interested in lens design? And what's your end goal after learning?
I'm rather surprised you would be tackling the optical Bloch equations as a sophomore. The material doesn't seem appropriate prior to at least introductory courses in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism. The best book I know of on the topic is called Optical Resonance and Two-Level Atoms by Allen and Eberly. You can pick it up for less than $15 if your library doesn't have a copy. It isn't really geared for undergraduate reading, but the first few chapters have a pretty good intro to the theory.
It's a pretty deep hole you're jumping into though and I would suggest you limit the scope of your studying by talking to your research adviser about what exactly it is you need to know. Hopefully they can help guide you and keep you from getting too overwhelmed. Hope that helps. Good luck!
Quite a few:
Distagon
Tessar
Planar
DoF and Bokeh
Distortion
MTF1
MTF2
EF Lens Works III
Opticampus
I first got this book used for $20, it's old but very little if anything in it has changed as far as I can find. I have since acquired this book, but I have not finished it.
----
I read, a lot. I will be the best one day and I will not accept failure. This is just part of that journey.
I used Eugene Hecht's "Optics" for an optics course I took last year and enjoyed it quite a lot. It's a great self-contained source for both geometric and physical optics and is comprehensive enough to cover anything you might run into on the GRE.
Only downside is that it is a bit expensive.
Heh, I was in a similar situation. Thrown right in to quantum optics without any quantum mechanics course or advanced E & M. Anyhow, I second the recommendation of Allen & Eberly; it was the book I used as an introduction to the topic after a crash course in the necessary QM and E & M. You should get a copy of Zetilli's Quantum Mechanics and Landau & Lifshitz Volume 8 (and/or Jackson if you're brave) for this. I also recommend Chapters 15 and 16 of Mandel & Wolf's Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics.
Shit yeah, Introductory Quantum Optics.
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Optical-System-Layout-Lenses/dp/0070592543/ref=sr_1_38?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412189035&sr=1-38&keywords=optical+engineer
http://www.amazon.com/Mounting-Optics-Optical-Instruments-Monograph/dp/0819471291/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412189080&sr=1-1&keywords=optical+mount
http://www.amazon.com/An-Introduction-Fiber-Optic-Systems/dp/0256204144/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412191897&sr=8-1&keywords=introduction+to+fiber+optic+systems
The first book will only give you a half decent understanding of lens system, and the second book will tell you how to design mounts so you don't screw up the lenses/are able to adjust them. The third book talks about fiber optic systems in general.
You can probably get 100% of the parts you need off of Thorlabs.
I guess if you do some hand calculation and a bright laser, you can finagle your way through to get a system set up. But something that you have to remember is that in optics, your tolerances are within micrometers (which isn't easily achievable by machines). So distance becomes a huge problem, especially when we're talking about columnated beams (or freespace systems).
I know this is an easy job to do in Zemax and should only take half a day. Seems like a simple, fiber --> lens --> lens --> fiber setup. But putting it together will be difficult. It is my suggestion that you find someone to either build this system for you or at the very least, find an optical alignment technician to do the alignment for you.
Without knowing too much about what you're trying to achieve (especially in regards to sheer size, light source, and what you're trying to collect), this is the best advice I can give.
If you use 3/4 Nyquist it is indeed correct that it won't be monotonic - this is the weakness of single points on the curve of a function trying to convey all of the necessary information. On the other hand, if you're curious what's going on at very fine scales - the place to look /is/ what's going on near Nyquist. Even if there are nonidealities. And you can design a metric that glosses those over, for example integrating between (say) 3/4 and Nyquist, which would be much better conditioned. The wider the bandwidth the better conditioned it is, until you just end up at SQF.
If you want to capture "sharpness," it really is optimal to just use SQF. Perceptual sharpness was simply figured out a long time ago. Hultgren's modified SQF is superior to the original, in my opinion.
The more complicated behavior I can't help you with (perhaps look in my two reference books on this topic...)
https://www.amazon.com/Modeling-Imaging-Digital-Tutorial-Engineering/dp/0819483397/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=remote+sensing+image+chain&qid=1564974865&s=gateway&sr=8-3
https://www.amazon.com/Remote-Sensing-Image-Chain-Approach/dp/0195178173/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=remote+sensing+image+chain&qid=1564974865&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Composites of smear and jitter are easy to model (even multiple smears) - just convolve several jitters or smears together with the .conv syntax. If you want to learn prysm, I would recommend keeping an eye on the v0.17 release notes. This release is due in the next little while (a few weeks, probably) and will break a lot of way the library was used in <= v0.16 to reduce the amount of vocabulary you need to know to use the library.
Can you get through a paywall?
Here is a tutorial on optical antennas. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself ;)
Jackson's electrodynamics has a chapter on the dielectric response of metals. Chapter 7, section 5. "Frequency dispersion characteristics of dielectrics, conductors, and plasmas."
Novotny's nano optics book has a brief review of dielectric response, and talks a lot about the antenna analogy.
Matters of Light and Depth
http://www.amazon.com/Matters-Light-Depth-Creating-Memorable/dp/1879174030
I like two books that I used often:
My QO course is using Introduction to Quantum Optics by Grynberg, Aspect & Fabre (with a foreword by Cohen-Tannoudji). So far I'm finding it to be extremely clear and well-organized. It's divided in two parts: the first half deals with semiclassical QO, and the second with actual quantum light.