Photonics: An Introductory Course

Photonics deals with the applications of light in science and technology including a vast number of different topics from engineering to telecommunications, to medicine, computing, metrology, and on and on. The book covers different topics related to the properties of the coherent interaction of light with matter in the frame of classical electrodynamics introducing the basic concepts in this field to undergraduate students and young researchers approaching this field. The contents include a revision of the fundamental properties of light and of the classical theory of light emission and intro- duces the basic equations describing the propagation of light beams and light pulses, including light propagation in uniaxial crystals and diffraction. A list of solved problems is included at the end of each chapter and the bibliography at the end covers both a basic and a more specialized literature for those students likely to go more deeply into the fascinating ideas of this field.