D E PA R T M E N T S

BOOK REVIEWS

Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena

Jean-Claude Diels and Wolfgang Rudolph, 542 pages, illustrations, index, 564 references, and ve appendices. ISBN: 0-12215492-4. Academic Press, Inc., 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California, 92101-4495 1996 $95 hardbound. Reviewed by Steven A. Miller, Defense Systems Group, Texas Instruments, Inc., M/S PMK3, 2501 West University Drive, McKinney, Texas 75070.

The literature abounds with texts on the subject of lasers. Any one book could provide a beginning graduate student with the tools necessary to understand lasers and their interaction with matter. However, the treatment of ultrashort lasers in such books is cursory, if included at all, since the intricacies of femtosecond pulse generation go beyond what is commonly considered fundamental. It is true that literally thousands of journal articles on the subject are available but one would be hard pressed to nd a compilation of femtosecond laser technology, especially one suitable as an advanced graduate text or for the practical user. So where is one to turn? I would strongly recommend Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena by Diels and Rudolph. As any text on fundamentals should, the book begins with a concise overview of concepts and terminology necessary for a fruitful journey into the femtosecond world. I found the notation to be consistent and the introductory material of Chapter 1 quite refreshing. Particularly impressive was a lucid explanation of the analogy between free-space propagation of a Gaussian beam and pulse propagation through a GVD media. As with any new topic, establishing a connection with previous material is an excellent teaching tool. The next three chapters present the topics of optics, light-matter interaction, and coherent phenomena from a femtosecond perspective. The chapter on optics delves into fundamental principles governing the delivery of femtosecond radiation and illustrates the properties of angularly dispersive elements, which are so vital in ultrafast laser cavity design. In discussing light-matter interaction, the authors carefully point

out circumstances where approximations learned in a rst course on lasers remain valid and where they must be abandoned in favor of a more exact approach. Chapters 5 through 8 are then dedicated to the functional aspects of femtosecond sources. The reader is introduced to the building blocks of actual devices. There is ample material here to supply the experimentalist the knowledge to construct a working laser cavity. The authors follow in logical order with a thorough presentation of the lasers temporal and spectral attributes, thoughtfully mixing the theoretical aspects of pulse characterization with an indepth account of numerous experimental techniques. I found this rich mix of formalism and hands-on to be the texts most redeeming quality. Having described the apparatus completely, the remaining one-fth of the text is dedicated to novel experiments involving biology, x-ray generation, semiconductors, and ultrafast imaging, to name a few, made accessible by the advent of femtosecond laser technology. The problems at the end of each chapter are thought provoking without being overwhelming in difculty. They show a sincere effort on the part of the authors to provide useful insight and test the students understanding in each important topic. The text furnishes all the essential theoretical and experimental machinery for a student to explore not only the literature, but the laboratory with condence. What I would have given for such a comprehensive text during my tenure as a graduate student in the laser laboratories of North Texas State University, where Diels himself also spent several years as a professor. There are a select few so-called Fundamentals texts, which are guaranteed to occupy the library of those in both academia and industry who deal with lasers. Diels and Rudolph have certainly composed a book of this stature on femtosecond lasers. Books of this importance rise above the ordinary because of their clarity, completeness, and practicality. It is no longer necessary to serve as an apprentice to one of a small group of accomplished laser physicists to nd out everything you ever wanted to know about femtosecond laser physics.

Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing

Irving P. Herman, 797 pages, illustrations, index, and references. ISBN 0-12342070-9. Academic Press, 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California 921014495 1996 $95 hardbound. Reviewed by William G. Breiland, Sandia National Laboratories, MS 0601, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-0601. The deposition, etching, and patterning of thin lm materials are critical technologies essential to many industries, with applications ranging from wear and corrosion resistant coatings to remarkably sophisticated microelectronics and optoelectronics devices. However, if one were to go into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and turn off the elegantly engineered robotics, disable the elaborate safety interlocks, and peel off the handsomely painted sheet metal panels, they would more than likely nd a piece of equipment that differed very little from what was rst used in a university research laboratory to develop the original process. The most obvious deciency in this equipment is an almost complete lack of in situ monitors and sensors that measure thin lm properties as opposed to process variables. Because these monitors are not used, much thin lm processing is forced to employ a timed-recipe approach based on tedious calibration runs rather than real-time control. The thin lm industry is poised to address this deciency, in part, with a wide variety of optical methods that are described in Hermans timely new book. This tour de force work unquestionably provides the most diverse and comprehensive review of optical diagnostics for thin lm processing that can be found in the open literature today. The diversity is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, a person wishing to nd information on a particular optical technique will almost assuredly nd a discussion of it in Hermans book. On the other hand, they will probably also wish that the discussion had more depth and detailmuch the same feeling that one gets when looking something up in an encyclopedia. To make up for the lack of detail, Herman has adopted a review-article style of writing that provides the reader with ap-

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BOOK REVIEWS

proximately 1800 well-researched references and hundreds of gures from the scientic and engineering literature. This style does not make good bedside reading, but it does reward the serious researcher with a well-written and well-organized account of the highlights of a subject, along with a clear path that can lead one to further indepth information. Herman also makes a very good attempt to present a broad overview of this vast eld and to make valuable comparisons and connections between diverse areas of thin lm optical diagnostics. The book is divided into 19 chapters, each chapter typically dealing with either background material or a specic optical technique, such as laser induced uorescence. This organization clearly favors optical spectroscopists more than thin lm process engineers. The process engineer would most likely benet more from an alternative organization that discusses all the optical techniques that have been used on a particular thin lm tool. However, Herman effectively achieves this kind of organization by cross-referencing optical technique chapters within his discussion of specic thin lm processing methods. The rst chapter of the book presents a very readable introduction and guide to the rest of the text. A section is devoted to a discussion on the need for optical diagnostics. Another summarizes qualitative features of all the optical diagnostics discussed in later chapters. Finally, there is a summary of thin lm processing techniques accompanied by tables that cross-reference optical techniques used with specic thin lm processing methods. The next three chapters present perhaps an overly ambitious attempt to describe the properties of light, the structure of matter, and interactions of light and matter in about 100 pages. The coverage of relevant topics is thorough, but, as would be expected, lacking in detail. For example, only two pages can be devoted to the spectroscopy of linear moleculesenough to mention P, Q, and R branches, but woefully inadequate to help someone describe the laser induced uorescence spectrum of the 3 3 transition in the NH molecule. Nonetheless, all the classic spectroscopy resources are referenced so one could certainly go to Herzbergs texts to learn more. The fth chapter discusses the experimental aspects of optical diagnostics. It covers a great deal of material in a short span of wellreferenced topics. The rest of the book is devoted to specic optical diagnostic methods, with considerable treatment given to optical thermometry, which is gaining increased importance in thin lm processing. There is a nal chapter that deals with the subject of data analysis and process control. Again, the treatment is cursory, but it serves to inform readers unfamiliar with this aspect of thin lm processing about the

existence of statistical design of experiments and neural networks. The greatest value of Optical Diagnostics for Thin Film Processing is as a comprehensive reference text. I have already used it several times to quickly nd out what research has been done with a specic optical technique or to obtain a list of references on some topic. Although the writing is clear, the review-article style and cursory treatment of any one subject does not make it a good textbook or general source for casual reading. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to seriously delve into the eld of thin lm optical diagnostics or wants a single source book of well-organized and very high-density information on this subject.

the rst portion of the book, followed by related issues in high-level vision, such as object classication, scene segmentation, and visual cognition. The nal chapter proposes a model for the general ow of information in the visual cortex. Lasers and Electro-Optics: Fundamentals and Engineering, by Christopher C. Davis. ix720 pp., illus., appendices, index, references following each chapter. ISBN 0-521-48403-0. Cambridge University Press, The Pitt Building, Trumpington St., Cambridge CB2 1RP 1996 paperback. This textbook provides an introduction to the basic physics and engineering aspects of lasers, and the design and operational principles of optical systems and electro-optical devices. The rst half of the book contains fundamentals of laser physics and laser radiation and discusses types of individual lasers, including crystal, atomic gas, moelcular gas, and semiconductor lasers. The second half of the book discusses such topics as optical bers, electro- and acousto-optic devices, fundamentals of nonlinear optics, parametric processes, phase conjugation, and optical bistability. The nal chapters contain information on optical detection, coherence theory, and the application of lasers. The book is suitable for undergraduate courses in laser physics, optoelectronics, photonics, and optical engineering. Laser Fundamentals, by William T. Silfvast. vii521 pp., illus., appendix, index, summary at beginning of each chapter, worked examples, references following each chapter. ISBN 0-521-55617-1. Cambridge University Press, 40 West 20th St., New York, NY 10011-4211 1996 paperback. Provides an introduction to the physical and engineering principles of laser operation and design. Covered are the fundamental wave and quantum properties of light; the concepts of population inversion, amplication, gain-bandwidth, and laser pumping; and the basic properties of laser cavities and Gaussian beams. Also discussed are unstable resonators, Qswitching, mode-locking, pulse-shortening techniques, ring lasers, spectral narrowing, and waveguide lasers. Nonlinear Optics of Organic Molecules and Polymers, Hari Singh Nalwa and Seizo Miyata, Eds. 1885 pp., illus., index, references following each chapter. ISBN 0-8493-8923-2. CRC Press, Inc., 2000 Corporate Blvd. NW, Boca Raton, FL 33431 1997 hardbound. Provides theoretical approaches, measurement techniques, materials, technologies, and applications of nonlinear optical materials. Includes basic optical physics through theoretical modeling and molecular engineering. Information in the book covers nonlinear optical materials through 1995.

BOOKS RECEIVED Trends in Optics, Vol. 3, edited by Anna Consortini. v587 pp., illus., color plates, index, references following each chapter. ISBN 0-12-186030-2. Academic Press, Inc., 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495 1996 $55 hardbound. A collection of 31 papers on the latest applications of modern optics. Book format is unformal and is accessible to readers that are not optics specialists. Paper topics include biospeckles, photon migration, diffractive optics, holography, diffraction tomography, optical interconnects, signal synthesis, mirror optics, photorefractive bers, Doppler lidar, spectroscopy, and molecular beam epitaxy. Applied Optics and Optoelectronics, edited by K. T. V. Grattan. v473 pp., illus., index, references following each chapter. ISBN 0-7503-0382-4. Institute of Physics Publishing, Techno House, Redcliffe Way, Bristol BS1 6NX, United Kingdom 1996 hardbound. This book contains the proceedings of the Applied Optics Divisional Conference of the Institute of Physics, held in Reading in September 1996. Contributions are made by the Institute of Physics Optical Group, Instrument Science and Technology Group, and the Fringe Analysis Special Interest Group, as well as others. Papers presented include the areas of applied optics, fringe analysis, optical instrumentation, and photonic sensing. High-Level Vision: Object Recognition and Visual Cognition, by Shimon Ullman. vii412 pp., illus., appendices, denitions, bibliography, and index. ISBN 0-26221013-4. MIT Press, 55 Hayward St., Cambridge, MA 02142 1996 $40 hardbound. Deals with the processes of high-level vision that involve the interpretation and use of what is seen in an image. Object recognition and classication, and visual cognition are the two problems the author focuses on. Object recognition is covered in

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