Springer Handbook of Lasers and Optics

The Springer Handbook of Lasers and Optics provides fast, up-to-date, comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the wide fields of optics and lasers. It is written for daily use in the office or laboratory and offers explanatory text, data, and references needed for anyone working with lasers and optical instruments.

Each chapter or section is authored by respected experts and contains the basic principles, applications and latest information in the field. Among the subjects covered are geometrical and wave optics, linear and nonlinear optics, optical materials and components, detectors, incoherent and all essential types of coherent light sources, generation of ultrashort pulses, spectroscopic techniques, laser safety as well as current trends in such modern areas as quantum optics, femto- and attosecond physics, and nanooptics as well as optics beyond the diffraction limit.

The 21 chapters are grouped into four parts which cover basic principles and materials, fabrication and properties of optical components, coherent and incoherent light sources, and, finally, selected applications and special fields such as terahertz photonics, X-ray optics and holography.

The handbook is written and compiled for physicists, engineers and other scientists at universities and in industrial research who develop and use optical techniques.

With a Foreword by Nobel Laureate T.W. Hänsch

From the reviews:

"Frank Träger has assembled a veritable who’s who of laser researchers … . In short, go out and buy this book; it is an excellent desk reference for researchers and research students. Undergraduates will find much to interest them, especially those contemplating entering the field. My only problem is where to hide my copy before my students think it should be on their shelf!" (Barry Luther-Davies, Australian Physics, Vol. 44 (4), 2007)

"This weighty work is intended to offer comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the wide fields of optics and lasers. … Overall text is clear, well written and accompanied by appropriate tables and diagrams. … The book’s content emphasis is very much on material suitable for the optical practitioner. … a worthy addition to stock for any library supporting physics at a university or specialist level." (Gareth J. Johnson, Reference Reviews, Vol. 22 (2), 2008)

Frank Träger is a full professor of experimental physics and head of the Interdisciplinary Center for Nanostructure Science and Technology – CINSaT at the University of Kassel, Germany.

Frank Träger received the diploma in physics from the University of Heidelberg where he continued his research to earn a Ph.D. in physics in 1974. Following his habilitation, he joined the IBM Almaden Research Center in San José, California, as a guest scientist from 1981 to 1982 and for several sabbaticals until 1986.

Since 1986, he has been an associate Professor at the Institute of Physics of the University of Heidelberg, and since September 1990 a full Professor in the Physics Department of the University of Kassel, Germany. His current research interests are the preparation and characterization of metal nanoparticles and self-assembled functional films, nonlinear optical phenomena, the study and application of nonthermal desorption and ablation phenomena, ultrafast electron dynamics on the femtosecond timescale and, last but not least, imaging of DNA by scanning probe microscopies. In his experiments, tunable laser radiation plays an essential role.

Frank Träger serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics published by Springer-Verlag. He is a Corresponding Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and of acatech, Konvent für Technikwissenschaften der Union der deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften e.V.