The practical, popular 1995 tutorial has been thoroughly revised and updated, reflecting developments in technology and applications during the past decade. New chapters address wave aberrations, thermal effects, design examples, and diamond turning.

This tutorial explains the human eye, its function, and performance limits from the perspective of an experienced optical engineer and lens designer. It is concise and readable, with examples and data, and is intended for students, practicing engineers, and technology users.

The choice of available infrared (IR) detectors for insertion into modern IR systems is both large and confusing. The purpose of this volume is to provide a technical database from which rational IR detector selection criteria evolve, and thus clarify the options open to the modern IR system designer. Emphasis concentrates mainly on high-performance IR systems operating in a tactical environment, although there also is discussion of both strategic environments and low- to medium-performance system requirements.

This tutorial text focuses on the optics and detector aspects of infrared system design. It introduces the terminology, processes, and instrument design techniques available. Design examples are based on real problems investigated by the author.

This tutorial introduces the theory and applications of MTF, used to specify the image quality achieved by an imaging system. It covers basic linear systems theory and the relationship between impulse response, resolution, MTF, OTF, PTF, and CTF. Practical measurement and testing issues are discussed.

Annotation There is a maximum power and energy that you can put into or transmit through your optical system; in many cases, this maximum is well below the laser-induced damage threshold. This tutorial explains the factors and constraints that limit the power- and energy-handling capability of optical materials, components, and/or systems. Because the lasers coming off the production lines are much more stable, efficient, and controlled than in the past, today's engineers often do not have the insight into the technology as was required of first-generation laser engineers. However, important insights into the use and performance of the laser and optical systems can be lost unless we remind ourselves at periodic intervals of the problems our predecessors had to face.

This book provides the reader with the broad range of materials that were discussed in a series of short courses presented at Georgia Tech on the design, fabrication, and testing of diffractive optical elements (DOEs). Although there are not long derivations or detailed methods for specific engineering calculations, the reader should be familiar and comfortable with basic computational techniques. This text is not a 'cookbook' for producing DOEs, but it should provide readers with sufficient information to assess whether this technology would benefit their work, and to understand the requirements for using the concepts and techniques presented by the authors.

This text presents several new thin-film design methods that can produce multiple stopbands as well as passbands. It is written for thin-film designers and students with advanced knowledge of multilayer, optical thin-film coatings. The text focuses on coatings that have high reflectance performance requirements in more than one spectral wavelength band or region. Relatively basic exercises are provided for students as well as challenging ones for researchers.

This tutorial will help technical professionals in optics determine whether their technologies have potential application in the life sciences. It also is useful as a 'prep class' for more detailed books on biology and biotechnology, filling the gap between fundamental and high-level approaches.

Many applications today require the Fourier-transform (FT) spectrometer to perform close to its limitations, such as taking many quantitative measurements in the visible and in the near infrared wavelength regions. In such cases, the instrument should not be considered as a perfect "black box." Knowing where the limitations of performance arise and which components must be improved are crucial to obtaining repeatable and accurate results. One of the objectives of this book is to help the user identify the instrument's bottleneck.