Advances in Information Optics and Photonics

Excerpt

This volume is the sixth in a series of books that the International Commission for Optics (ICO) edits for publication at the time of its triennial congresses. The earlier volumes have covered a broad scope of interests in optics at the time and have dealt with fundamental subjects, while the later editions have increasingly addressed advances in applied optics and photonics. The books previously published in the series are

• International Trends in Optics, ed. J. W. Goodman, USA (Academic Press, 1991)

• Current Trends in Optics, ed. J. C. Dainty, UK (Academic Press, 1994)

• Trends in Optics — Research, Developments and Applications, ed. A. Consortini, Italy (Academic Press, 1996)

• International Trends in Optics and Photonics, ed. T. Asakura, Japan (Springer, 1999)

• International Trends in Applied Optics, ed. A. H. Guenther, USA (SPIE Press, 2002)

The complete history of the ICO Book series, including the Tables of Contents of the previous volumes, can be found on p. xix of this book.

Besides highlighting the main developments of international optics and photonics, the aim of this book series is to promote the general awareness of the ICO and raise funds for its global activities, in particular the travelling lecturer program, which is aimed at enhancing optics in developing nations. Therefore all royalties will go to the ICO for that purpose.

In today's ‘age of light,’ optical information science and technology play a central role. The ICO has a long tradition in the subjects of information optics, dating back to the ICO topical meetings in Kyoto, Japan 1994 (Frontiers in Information Optics) and Tianjin, China 1998 (Optics for Information Infrastructure). The ICO has also been a permanent sponsor of the Optical Computing∕Optics in Computing conferences, a series of meetings spanning well over a decade. In 2006, the ICO organized two key events on information optics: the ICO topical meeting on Optoinformatics∕Information Photonics in St. Petersburg, Russia (Chairs A. V. Pavlov, M. L. Calvo, and J. Jahns) and the ICO∕ICTP Winter College on Optics in Trieste, Italy, with title “Quantum and Classical Aspects of Information Optics” (Directors P. Tombesi, M. L. Calvo, and P. Knight). Additionally, the recent ICO Prizes — most notably those in 2003 (B. J. Eggleton), 2004 (A. V. Krishnamoorthy), 2005 (I. Bloch), and 2006 (H. Sotobayashi) — have dealt with various basic and applied aspects of optical information. Hence it was quite natural to take advantage of these developments and focus the current volume of the ICO Book series on Advances in Information Optics and Photonics.

The present volume VI differs from the previous ones in at least three respects: it concentrates on a specific, though extremely important, topic within the broad field of optics and photonics, it does not contain the words ‘International Trends’ explicitly in the title, and it is published as a paperback. We hope that with these changes the book will find its way as a standard reading and reference material on the topic. The volume consists of 32 invited contributions from scientists or research groups working throughout the world on optical information science, technology, and applications. Many of the authors have actively participated in the ICO conferences and other activities and all of them are internationally recognized leaders in their respective subjects.

Many new concepts in classical and quantum-entangled light, coherent interaction with matter, novel materials and processes have led to remarkable breakthroughs in information science and technology. While it is difficult, and sometimes even dangerous, to group the contributions under separate headings, we have divided the chapters of this book into 7 sections:

1. Beam Optics

2. Laser Photonics and Components

3. Electromagnetic Coherence

4. Imaging, Microscopy, Holography, and Materials

5. Photonic Processing

6. Quantum Information and Matter

7. Communications and Networks

The sections contain chapters that address optical information sciences broadly in the linear, nonlinear, classical, and quantum regimes and describe the foundations, state-of-the-art devices and technologies, as well as the diverse applications of information optics and photonics. It is hoped that the reader will find chapters that are directly relevant to his∕her own work or otherwise will create interest in this fascinating, rapidly advancing, and highly potential subject.

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all of the authors who have devoted their time, effort, and expertise to write the superb and timely contributions for this volume. We would also like to thank the staff of SPIE Press, and especially Merry Schnell, Gwen Weerts, and Eric Pepper, for their professional work to produce this high-quality publication for the benefit of the global optics and photonics community.

Ari T. Friberg

President, International Commission for Optics

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden

Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Espoo, Finland

University of Joensuu, Finland

René Dändliker

Past President, International Commission for Optics

President of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences

University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland