Optics is reborn. There is fresh new vitality in applying old techniques
to new prob lems and fully exploring novel phenomena. Lasers,
holography, stellar navigation, nonlinear phenomena, and remote sensing
are subjects of the seventies, and their further development will
increase our understanding of nature and the development of technology.
This Series is devoted to provid- ing ideas and data to nourish the
growth of these scientific and engineering en- deavors' for we feel
strongly that science and engineering flourish best when they grow
together. Some of the volumes in the Series will be devoted to the
optical properties of materials, theories of the detailed mechanisms of
absorption, reflection, and nonlinea r phenomena, and electro-optical
coefficients. The understanding of such things leads to further
engineering applications. Companions to such theoretical books will be
compendia of property data; the triad is completed by monographs on the
use of the materials in op- tical and electro-optical systems. Laser
materials, lasers, and laser sys- tems form one of the groups which will
comprise the full set of ready-reference material for the entire field.
The Series will be intentionally international, including a fair
sampling of Russian work. There are important benefits to be obtained in
the alternate approaches often taken by our Soviet and other foreign
colleagues (just as they can gain from studying ours).