Optics
“Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light. Because light is an electromagnetic wave, other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves exhibit similar properties. ”
“Most optical phenomena can be accounted for using the classical electromagnetic description of light. Complete electromagnetic descriptions of light are, however, often difficult to apply in practice. Practical optics is usually done using simplified models. The most common of these, geometric optics, treats light as a collection of rays that travel in straight lines and bend when they pass through or reflect from surfaces. Physical optics is a more comprehensive model of light, which includes wave effects such as diffraction and interference that cannot be accounted for in geometric optics. Historically, the ray-based model of light was developed first, followed by the wave model of light. Progress in electromagnetic theory in the 19th century led to the discovery that light waves were in fact electromagnetic radiation.”
(Wikipedia, Optics, 11/26/2010)
Applications
Fiber Optics
Lenses
Materials
Optical Rotation (Activity)
Transparent Materials
Recent Journal Articles
12/17/2010
Surface plasmon-coupled emission on metallic film coated with dye-doped polymer nanogratings
(# 231117) Applied Physics Letters, 23 (2010)
Zhang, Yuan and Teng bserved plasmonic waves excited on a silver film coated with dye-doped poly(methyl methacrylate) nanogratings, which are characterized by leakage radiation microscopy. Various patterns of the surface plasmon-coupled emission are demonstrated with the structured nanogratings. Their potential application is the development of plasmon lasers. (RDC 12/14/2010)
12/3/2010
Nonlinear optical side-chain polymers post-functionalized with high-β chromophores exhibiting large electro-optic property
( 47–54) Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry 49 #1 (2011)
Koishi et al synthesized electro-optic side-chain polymers by the post-functionalization of methacrylate isocyanate polymers with novel phenyl vinylene thiophene vinylene bridge (FTC) nonlinear optical chromophores. Compared with the nonsubstituted analogue, benxyloxy modified FTC chromophore significantly achieved higher nonlinear optical property, exhibiting molecular hyperpolarizability at 1.9 μm of 4600 × 10−30 esu and an r33 value of 150 pm/V at the wavelength of 1.31 μm. Synthesized electro-optic polymers showed high glass transition temperature (Tg), so that the temporal stability examination exhibited >78% of the electro-optic intensity remaining at 85 °C over 500 h. (RDC 12/9/2010)