Foundations of geometric optics: Fermat’s Principle of Stationary Time. Nature of electromagnetic waves: dipole radiation, energy, momentum, polarization, coherence, interference, diffraction, Fourier optics. Interactions between light and matter: scattering, reflection, refraction, absorption, dispersion, birefringence, dichroism, nonlinear effects. Quantum optics: nature of the photon, lasers, detectors, other modern topics. Lecture and discussion. Laboratory with an emphasis on biomedical applications.

4 Credits

This course was developed with the support of NSF Award 0509869.

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