This book will help a lot of people, especially students and young researchers in optics, engineering science, and experimental physics, to stay out of a lot of trouble. I predict that many students and professors are going to be very grateful to Mark Johnson!
*Photodetection and Measurement* is all about how to make optical measurements work *in real life*. Starting from an elementary level, it takes you from the source, through the optical system, the crucial front end amplifier, the analogue signal processing and digitizing.
I especially liked the "TRY IT!" sections--guided tours that will give you an excellent intuitive and quantitative understanding of how lock-in… Read more
Photodetection is a surprisingly deep subject. Quantum photodetectors are probably the best transducers of anything in any field--one photon gets you one electron, over an enormous range of irradiance. Despite this apparent simplicity, intelligent design with photodetectors requires a deep knowledge of how they work, and what the tradeoffs in using them are.
Silvano Donati's _Photodetectors_ is a very good book, connecting much of the fundamental physics with operational specifications. Having these connections makes us more confident and more accurate in making design choices and photon budgets, leading to better instruments.
The language is clear for the most part, and the examples… Read more
I've used Palik & Ghosh as an occasional reference work for years, because it's very good, and has chapters on most of the materials I've needed to work with--metals, silicon, and oxide dielectrics of one sort or another. Obviously a lot of work went into it, and it's a pretty specialized business, measuring and tabulating optical properties. I'd give it 5 stars for content, no doubt about it--an orchid for the editors: for their part of the deal they deserve our praise and thanks.
The set gets about one star for value, because it's priced like a last-minute airline ticket--those who need it sufficiently badly will pay. The publishers want something getting on for a grand for 5… Read more
