Singular Optics

This book highlights how an understanding of singular optics provides a completely different way to look at light. Whereas traditional optics focuses on the shape and structure of the non-zero portions of the wavefield, singular optics describes a wave’s properties from its null regions. The contents cover the three main areas of the field: the study of generic features of wavefields, determination of unusual properties of vortices and wavefields that contain singularities, and practical applications of vortices and other singularities.

Gregory J. Gbur received a B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago in 1993 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1996 and 2001. Since 2005, he has been a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, becoming an Associate Professor in 2010. His research is in classical theoretical optics, focusing on singular optics, coherence theory, plasmonics and invisibility/cloaking. He has written or coauthored over 80 journal papers to date, including three reviews for Progress in Optics. He has written another textbook, Mathematical Methods for Optical Physics and Engineering. He has an active interest in science communication, writing the personal science blog Skulls in the Stars since 2007, and has written popular articles for a number of magazines, including La Recherche, American Scientist, and Optics and Photonics News.