Optical Properties of Solids

Books in this series are written at the final year undergraduate and beginning graduate level, and provide straightforward introductions to key topics in physics today. Background material and applications as well as pointers to more advanced work are included, along with ample tutorial material, examples, illustrations, chapter summaries, and graded problem sets (with some answers and hints).

The second edition of this successful textbook provides an up-to-date account of the optical physics of solid-state materials. The basic principles of absorption, reflection, luminescence, and light scattering are covered for a wide range of materials, including insulators, semiconductors, and metals. The text starts with a review of classical optics, and then moves on to the treatment of optical transition rates by quantum theory. In addition to the traditional discussion of crystalline materials, glasses and molecular solids are also covered.

The first edition included a number of subjects that are not normally covered in standard texts, notably semiconductor quantum wells, molecular materials, vibronic solid-state lasers, and nonlinear optics. The basic structure of the second edition is unchanged, but all of the chapters have been updated and improved. Futhermore, a number of important new topics have been added, including: optical control of spin quantum dots plasmonics negative refraction carbon nanostructures (graphene, nanotubes and fullerenes) NV centres in diamond.

The text is aimed at final year undergraduates, masters students, and researchers. It is mainly written for physicists, but might also be useful for electrical engineers, materials scientists, and physical chemists. The topics are written in a clear tutorial style with worked examples, chapter summaries, and exercises. A solutions manual is available on request for instructors.

Mark Fox, Professor of Physics at the University of Sheffield, began his research career at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1986, as a Junior Research Fellow. After a post-doctoral position with AT&T Bell Laboratories in the US, he returned to Oxford as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. He moved to Sheffield in 1998, becoming Professor there in 2006.