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Optics, Light and Lasers: The Practical Approach to
Modern Aspects of Photonics and Laser Physics, 2nd Edition
Dieter Menschede
Wiley-VCH, March 2007; $95.00 (softcover).
In its second edition, this remarkable textbook provides a sound introduction to lasers and laser
dynamics. A variety of lasers and laser technologies are presented with a rich supply of examples and
applications, such as laser-induced fluorescence and laser spectroscopy. A modern introduction to
quantum optics provides the reader with a first encounter to photon dynamics. The author includes
two chapters on nonlinear optics, allowing the reader to gain an appreciation of wave propagation in
nonlinear media and optical mixing processes.
Within the treatment of coherence and interferometry, the reader will find holographic reconstructions and laser speckle phenomena, and benefit from the treatment of classical optics, the historical
development of the laser, magnetic resonance and optical transition. This well-written and illustrated
text also includes a link to additional web material.
Review by Axel Mainzer Koenig, CEO, 21st Century Data Analysis, a division of Koenig & Associates, Inc.
RIAO/OPTILAS 2007
N.U. Wetter and J. Frejlich, eds.
AIP Conference Proceedings, volume 992, 2008; $499.00 (hardcover).
Each paper in this collection was presented at the 6th Ibero-American Conference on Optics and the
9th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers and Applications held in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil,
in October 2007. These conferences are held every three years; the next one is scheduled for Peru in
2010. The volume displays the wide dynamic range of optics research being pursued in Latin American
and Iberian countries; it spans atmospheric optics through quantum information to optical metrology,
with many topics in between. The papers have been rigorously prepared in the house style. Overall, the
quality and presentation of the figures and illustrations is very good. The editors and authors are to be
congratulated for getting this substantial volume into print in short order.
Review by K. Alan Shore, Bangor University, School of Electronic Engineering, Dean Street, Bangor, Wales, U.K.
Entangled Systems:
New Directions in Quantum Physics
Jurgen Audretsch
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, 2007; $85.00 (softcover).
This textbook is dedicated to recent advancements in quantum physics, such as quantum entanglement, quantum cryptography, quantum computation and decoherence. It is a book about quantum
theory as it applies to the particular problem of quantum computing. The first two chapters explain
briefly the principles of quantum theory, while the chapters that follow cover qubits, entropy, information and quantum gates. Entanglement, which is the main issue of the book, is treated in Chapters 8-11.
It is followed by a chapter dedicated to quantum computers and the associated algorithms. The final
chapters (13-16) are dedicated to the quantum measurement problem and decoherence. Problems and
further readings appear at the end of each chapter. The book is written in a comprehensive and clear
manner and should be browsed by anybody interested in quantum optics and quantum computers.
Review by Daniela Dragoman, physics faculty, University of Bucharest, Romania.
56 | OPN December 2008
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Mesoscopic Electronics in
Solid State Nanostructures
Thomas Heinzel
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2007; $115.00 (softcover).
This book covers everything from fundamental concepts through recent research in an area that has
seen many exciting developments over the last 25 years—the electronic transport properties of solid
state nanostructures. One of the major goals of the book is to introduce the reader to this topic from an
experimental point of view. The authors take great pains to motivate and explain illustrative experiments
in mesoscopic transport and the underlying physical principles. This is very helpful and absolutely
necessary, since he explains a field that is growing fast and in which some conceptual questions are
still being discussed.
What makes this remarkable as a textbook is that it treats topics as diverse as the quantum Hall
effect and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations, size quantification, phase coherence, single-electron tunneling and quantum dots, superlattices and spintronics. The book is well written, excellently structured,
and can be easily read by graduate students who are studying condensed matter. There are interesting exercises at the end of each chapter. In addition, each chapter can form the basis of a seminar or
independent study. I recommend this wonderful book to readers without hesitation.
Review by Christian Brosseau, a professor of physics at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest, France.
The opinions expressed in the book review section are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of OPN or OSA.
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OPN December 2008 | 57