Chapter 3:describes the essential principles of light interacting with materials.This includes transmission in both isotropic and anisotropic media and all the material based phenomena which give colour into our lives.This colour also provides insights into the material themselves – spectroscopic signatures!Of course light can also be scattered – sunlight spreading through a room is an everyday example and absorbed through designing surface finishes – a black card heats up much more quickly than a white one when left in the sunshine.There are also materials which have externally controllable optical properties – perhaps liquid crystals are the most familiar example.The absorptive process can of course go backwards – we have light emitters.These range from the centuries old heated ‘black’ body to flame tests for particular materials (sodium – table salt – probably the most familiar) to the lasers. Fluorescent materials and LED’s which are increasing apparent in everyday life.

Chapter 2:explores the nature of light and the much debated question – should we regard light as an electromagnetic wave (including as a current though a conducting material) or as a particle?The key lies in the fact that (usually) light can be regarded as transmitted as a wave and (usually) light can be regarded as detected as a particle.We explore the implications and conclude that the answer lies in the specific question being asked!

Chapter 5: is a brief look into the many and diverse applications of photonics and the essential principles underlying them. Many are familiar – displays and lighting being the most prevalent.Imaging, especially in the era of the mobile phone, is an everyday operation and astronomical telescopes are regulars in publically presented the science and technology reports.Optical communications has also become taken for granted – optical fibre enables the internet!Less familiar perhaps are the use of ultra-violet and other sources in photo-therapy, lasers in surgery and industrial machining and, increasingly important, in environmental analysis and monitoring.And many high street opticians now have subtle probes to assess retinal health based on three dimensional tomographic probes.Photonics has indeed crept into our everyday environment – and will continue to become increasing important as an enabler of technological advances.

Chapter 1: introduces the subject – starting by endeavouring to define what the term ’photonics’ might mean and following this with a very brief exploration of the basic concepts.There is then a brief discussion about applications which impact upon our everyday lives.An outline of the book and the reasons for its being presented in this particular format follows.Finally, there is a very brief mention of the background in other complementary disciplines which complement photonics.