Physics and Engineering of Graded-Index Media

Optical materials with varying refractive indices are called graded-index (GRIN) media and they are widely used within many industries, including telecommunications and medical imaging. Another recent application is space division multiplexing, an enormously improved technique for optical data transmission. This book synthesises recent research developments in this growing field, presenting both the underlying physical principles behind optical propagation in GRIN media, and the most important engineering applications. The principles of wave optics are employed for solving Maxwell's equations inside a GRIN medium, ensuring that diffractive effects are fully included. The mathematical development builds gradually and a variety of exact and approximate techniques for solving practical problems are included, in addition to coverage of modern topics such as optical vortices, photonic spin-orbit coupling, photonic crystals, and metamaterials. This text will be useful for graduate students and researchers working in optics, photonics and optical communications.

具有不同折射率的光學材料被稱為分級折射率（GRIN）介質，並且在許多行業中廣泛應用，包括電信和醫學影像。另一個最近的應用是空間分割多工，這是一種極大改進的光學數據傳輸技術。本書綜合了這個快速發展領域的最新研究進展，介紹了GRIN介質中光傳播的基本物理原理和最重要的工程應用。使用波動光學原理來解決GRIN介質內的麥克斯韋方程，確保了全面包含繞射效應。數學發展逐漸進行，包括了多種解決實際問題的精確和近似技術，此外還涵蓋了現代主題，如光旋渦、光子自旋軌道耦合、光子晶體和超材料。本書對於從事光學、光子學和光通信的研究生和研究人員非常有用。