Essentials of optoelectronics: With applications (Optical and Quantum Electronics Series) - Softcover

A.J. Rogers

9780412408908: Essentials of optoelectronics: With applications (Optical and Quantum Electronics Series)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0412408902 ISBN 13: 9780412408908

Publisher: Chapman & Hall, 1997

Optoelectronics is a science and a technology based on the conjunction of optics with electronics. The special advantages of such a conjunction should become clear as the reader progresses through the book but, broadly, they result from the large speed and information-carrying capacity of light coming into alliance with the ready controllability of electrons. 8 1 The great speed of light is weil known ( ...... 3 x 10 m s- in a vacuum); it is, in fact, the greatest speed which is possible for any form of physical energy, as was elucidated by Einstein in his special theory of relativity (1905); and it is not so very long ago ( c. 1640) that many scientists held the view that the speed of light was infinite. The large information-carrying capacity of light derives from the high frequency of its oscillations. The implication is that optical processes occur 14 on a time-scale of order one optical period ( ...... 10- sec), and thus that they can absorb and convey information on the same kind of time-scale, leading to information rates of the order of the optical frequency. Electrons, unlike photons, carry electrical charge. As a consequence they respond to electric and magnetic fields, which thus can be used to control and manipulate them. This is a significant advantage, since mod� ern electronics provides finely adjustable fields at a sophisticated Ievel of flexibility.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Alan Rogers is Head of Department, Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, King's College London, UK.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.