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GEB2301 Amazing Light: Technology of Light for a Bright Future: Home

Course Description

This introductory course covers optics and photonics topics, including fundamental concepts, basic principles, and the technical fundamentals for relevant modern applications. The knowledge of light includes reflection, refraction, interference, diffraction, as well as the geometrical optics and information optics. The technology of light includes the application basis of light in sensing, communication, biomedicine, and other fields, as well as its scientific and technological development. This course is designed for undergraduate students from multiple disciplines. Students will understand the fundamentals and concepts of optics, photonics, and related technology.

Recommended Books

Introduction to Optics

This book introduces the simplest optical phenomena and the simplest optical instruments. Rectilinear propagation, reflection, and refraction dominate the optical effects in nature and are essential to understanding the function of simple optical devices. It presents the arguments relating to the nature of light and its propagation, the basic interactions between light and matter, and the energy aspect of light in relation to the quantitative measurement of visible radiation (photometry). It covers the fundamental laws governing reflection and refraction, as well as their applications in prisms and atmospheric phenomena. Simple optical instruments such as the pinhole camera, the human eye, the microscope, the telescope, and the photographic camera are covered.

Introduction to Optics

Translated from the original French and thoroughly updated, this book gives an introduction to modern optics at an advanced level. It covers essential concepts of comprehension and reports the great progress of current knowledge in optics. The method of presentation is inspired by the unique approach by Richard Feynman, with an emphasis on "telling" optics, rather than deducing it from fundamental laws. In addition to the traditional aspects of optics, it includes the tools and methods currently used by researchers and engineers as well as explanation and implications of the most recent developments.

Let There Be Light: The Story of Light from Atoms to Galaxies

This book is devoted to the key role played by light and electromagnetic radiation in the universe. Topics introduced include philosophical hypotheses such as the economy, symmetry and the universality of natural laws, and are then guided to practical consequences such as the rules of geometrical optics and even Einstein's well-known but mysterious relationship, E = mc2. This second edition has replaced much of the mathematical detail of the first edition with verbal description of the methods of calculation and their logical conclusions, with emphasis on interest and enjoyment rather than more formal study.

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