Introduction to Modern Optics and Photonics for Students in Engineering and Applied Science

The following is a text taught to engineering and applied science students at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering from 2017. The course met for four hours a week during one fourteen-week semester. Unlike other texts in Modern Optics this text is intended to be used by students in both engineering and applied science at a junior or senior level, and to support specialized interdisciplinary applied optics courses given at a graduate level, such as Bio-Optics. The course emphasizes fundamentals starting with Maxwell’s equations, which is where the introductory physics sequence ends, and applies these fundamentals to current interests in applied science and technology. Appropriate to the level of the course, Maxwell’s Equations are represented in their integral form. Where advanced math was added (e.g. Fourier Transform), the students were introduced to this as if taught in an applied math course. Uncommon to this sort of course are Take-home Experiments: These experimental assignments are dispersed within the text, for which the students were supplied with a small inventory of parts (e.g. transmission diffraction gratings, polarizer, red laser, aspheric lens, 1” diameter acrylic sphere, and dye solutions). These components including a mounting base plate can soon be purchased as a product from Amazon known as "Pocket Optics" (ASIN : B08HQ63XF4). With these parts 9 experiments are assigned to support the concepts taught in the course. One of these involves turning a Smartphone into a microscope. Another uses the smart phone as a photometer. Applications: Some of the many applications discussed are Optical Tweezers, Demystifying the structure of DNA from Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction image (Photo 51), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), nano-plasmonics, Fabry-Perot resonator, Whispering Gallery Mode sensor, LASER, Confocal microscope, and Super high-resolution microscopy (STED). Read more