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Information about Optics

“Optical” redirects here. For the musical artist, see Optical (artist).
For the book by Sir Isaac Newton, see .


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Table of Opticks, 1728 Cyclopaedia


Optics (ὀπτική appearance or look in Ancient Greek) is a branch of physics that describes the behavior and properties of light and the interaction of light with matter. Optics explains optical phenomena.

The field of optics usually describes the behavior of visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light; however because light is an electromagnetic wave, analogous phenomena occur in X-rays, microwaves, radio waves, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Optics can thus be regarded as a sub-field of electromagnetism. Some optical phenomena depend on the quantum nature of light relating some areas of optics to quantum mechanics. In practice, the vast majority of optical phenomena can be accounted for using the electromagnetic description of light, as described by Maxwell's Equations.

The field of optics has its own identity, societies, and conferences. The pure science aspects of the field are often called optical science or optical physics. Applied optical sciences are often called optical engineering. Applications of optical engineering related specifically to illumination systems are called illumination engineering. Each of these disciplines tends to be quite different in its applications, technical skills, focus, and professional affiliations. More recent innovations in optical engineering are often categorized as photonics or optoelectronics. The boundaries between these fields and "optics" are often unclear, and the terms are used differently in different parts of the world and in different areas of industry.

Because of the wide application of the science of "light" to real-world applications, the areas of optical science and optical engineering tend to be very cross-disciplinary. Optical science is a part of many related disciplines including electrical engineering, physics, psychology, medicine (particularly ophthalmology and optometry), and others. Additionally, the most complete description of optical behavior, as known to physics, is unnecessarily complicated for most problems, so particular simplified models are used. These limited models adequately describe subsets of optical phenomena while ignoring behavior irrelevant and/or undetectable to the system of interest.

Classical optics

Before quantum optics became important, optics consisted mainly of the application of classical electromagnetism and its high frequency approximations to light. Classical optics divides into two main branches: geometric optics and physical optics.

Geometric optics, or ray optics, describes light propagation in terms of "rays". Rays are bent at the between two dissimilar media, and may be curved in a medium in which the refractive index is a function of position. The "ray" in geometric optics is an abstract object which is perpendicular to the wavefronts of the actual optical waves. Geometric optics provides rules for propagating these rays through an optical system, which indicates how the actual wavefront will propagate. Note that this is a significant simplification of optics, and fails to account for many important optical effects such as diffraction and polarization.

Geometric optics is often simplified even further by making the paraxial approximation, or "small angle approximation." The mathematical behavior then becomes linear, allowing optical components and systems to be described by simple matrices. This leads to the techniques of Gaussian optics and paraxial raytracing, which are used to find first-order properties of optical systems, such as approximate image and object positions and magnifications. Gaussian beam propagation is an expansion of paraxial optics that provides a more accurate model of coherent radiation like laser beams. While still using the paraxial approximation, this technique partially accounts for diffraction, allowing accurate calculations of the rate at which a laser beam expands with distance, and the minimum size to which the beam can be focused. Gaussian beam propagation thus bridges the gap between geometric and physical optics.

Physical optics or wave optics builds on Huygen's principle and models the propagation of complex wavefronts through optical systems, including both the amplitude and the phase of the wave. This technique, which is usually applied numerically on a computer, can account for diffraction, interference, and polarization effects, as well as aberrations and other complex effects. Approximations are still generally used, however, so this is not a full electromagnetic wave theory model of the propagation of light. Such a full model would (at present) be too computationally demanding to be useful for most problems, although some small-scale problems can be analyzed using complete wave models.

Topics related to classical optics

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Conceptual animation of dispersion of light in a prism.

Modern optics

Modern optics encompasses the areas of optical science and engineering that became popular in the 20th century. These areas of optical science typically relate to the electromagnetic or quantum properties of light but do include other topics.

Topics related to modern optics

Other optical fields

Everyday optics

Optics is part of everyday life. Rainbows and mirages are examples of optical phenomena. Many people benefit from eyeglasses or contact lenses, and optics are used in many consumer goods including cameras. Superimposition of periodic structures, for example transparent tissues with a grid structure, produces shapes known as moiré patterns. Superimposition of periodic transparent patterns comprising parallel opaque lines or curves produces line moiré patterns.

See also

Societies

Wikibooks modules

References

  • Hecht, Eugene (2001). Optics (4th ed.). Pearson Education. ISBN 0-8053-8566-5. 
  • Serway, Raymond A.; Jewett, John W. (2004). Physics for Scientists and Engineers (6th ed.). Brooks/Cole. ISBN 0-534-40842-7. 
  • Tipler, Paul (2004). Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Electricity, Magnetism, Light, and Elementary Modern Physics (5th ed.). W. H. Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-0810-8. 

External links

Textbooks and tutorials

  • Optics — an open-source Optics textbook
  • Optics2001 — Optics library and community

Societies

Optical is the pseudonym of Matt Quinn, a renowned drum and bass producer and DJ from England.

He is best known for his work with Ed Rush, fellow head of the Virus Recordings label, and as a pioneer of the techstep and neurofunk sound.
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Ancient Greek refers to the second stage in the history of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Greece.
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Physics is the science of matter[1] and its motion[2][3], as well as space and time[4][5] —the science that deals with concepts such as force, energy, mass, and charge.
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Light is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light). In a scientific context, the word "light" is sometimes used to refer to the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
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Light is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light). In a scientific context, the word "light" is sometimes used to refer to the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
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matter is commonly defined as the substance of which physical objects are composed, not counting the contribution of various energy or force-fields, which are not usually considered to be matter per se (though they may contribute to the mass of objects).
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An optical phenomenon is any observable event which results from the interaction of light and matter. See also list of optical topics and optics.

Common optical phenomena are often due to the interaction of light from the sun or moon with the atmosphere, clouds, water, or
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visible spectrum (or sometimes optical spectrum) is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to (can be detected by) the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light.
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Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of radio waves. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra, "below"), red being the color of visible light with the longest wavelength.
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Ultraviolet (UV) light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than soft X-rays. It is so named because the spectrum starts with wavelengths slightly shorter than the wavelengths humans identify as the color violet
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Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is a self-propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation, and are in phase with each other.
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X-rays (or Röntgen rays) are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz to 30 EHz. X-rays are primarily used for diagnostic radiography and crystallography.
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Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths shorter than one meter and longer than one millimeter, or frequencies between 300 megahertz and 300 gigahertz.
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Radio is the wireless transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space.
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Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is a self-propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation, and are in phase with each other.
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Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field: a field which exerts a force on particles that possess the property of electric charge, and is in turn affected by the presence and motion of those particles.
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“Quanta” redirects here. For other uses, see Quantum (disambiguation).

Development of quantum theory

Quantum theory, the branch of physics which is based on quantization, began in 1900 when Max Planck published his theory explaining the
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quantum mechanics is the study of the relationship between energy quanta (radiation) and matter, in particular that between valence shell electrons and photons. Quantum mechanics is a fundamental branch of physics with wide applications in both experimental and theoretical physics.
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For thermodynamic relations, see .
In electromagnetism, Maxwell's equations are a set of four equations that were first presented as a distinct group in 1884 by Oliver Heaviside in conjunction with Willard Gibbs.
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Optical physics, or optical science, is a subfield of atomic, molecular, and optical physics. It is the study of the generation of electromagnetic radiation, the properties of that radiation, and the interaction of that radiation with matter, especially its manipulation and
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Optical engineering is the field of study that focuses on applications of optics.

Optical engineers design components of optical instruments such as lenses, microscopes, telescopes, and other equipment that utilize the properties of light.
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Not to be confused with lightning.
Lighting includes both artificial light sources such as lamps and natural illumination of interiors from daylight.
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Photonics is the science of generating, controlling, and detecting photons, particularly in the visible and near infra-red spectrum, but also extending to the ultraviolet (0.2 - 0.
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Optoelectronics is the study and application of electronic devices that interact with light, and thus is usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, light often includes invisible forms of radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared.
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Ophthalmology is the branch of medicine which deals with the diseases and surgery of the visual pathways, including the eye, brain, and areas surrounding the eye, such as the lacrimal system and eyelids.
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Optometry (Greek: optos meaning seen or visible and metria meaning measurement) is a health care profession concerned with eyes and related structures, vision, visual system and vision information processing in humans.
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Quantum optics is a field of research in physics, dealing with the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light and its interactions with matter.

History of quantum optics


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A high frequency approximation (or "high energy approximation") for scattering or other wave propagation problems, in physics or engineering, is an approximation whose accuracy increases with the size of features on the scatterer or medium relative to the wavelength of the
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In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics which studies interference, diffraction, polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric optics is not valid.
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Light is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light). In a scientific context, the word "light" is sometimes used to refer to the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
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