| Lasers, Ultrashort lasers | Nonlinear optics |
| Quantum optics and basic optics | Other useful references |
| Ultrashort laser pulse phenomena, Jean-Claude Diels and Wolfgang Rudolph, (Academic Press, 1996). | The first comprehensive textbook treatment of this subject that I am aware of and the one I use for class. The 2nd edition is mostly the same (even keeping some of the mistakes). |
| Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating: The Measurement of Ultrashort Laser Pulses, Rick Trebino, (Kluwer Academic Pubishers, 2002). | By one of the inventors of FROG. An important text for three reasons: (1) FROG is important, (2) It contains an excellent introduction to the field of ultrafast optics with minimal formalism, and (3) Rick is a great teacher. If you are in the field, should be a part of your library. |
| Lasers for ultrashort light pulses, Joachim Herrmann and Bernd Wilhelmi, (North-Holland, 1987). | One of the first books on the subject. Still useful. Discussion is more intuitive. |
| Lasers, Anthony E. Siegman, (University Science Books, 1986). | Classic text. |
| Principles of Lasers, 4th ed., Orazio Svelto (Plenum, 1998). | Great introductory text. The formalism is not overly dense and you can hop from section to section without too much trouble. I use this when I teach my Introduction to Lasers class. |
| Quantum Electronics, 3rd ed., Amnon Yariv, (Wiley, 1989). | Treatment is at times archaic, but still a useful reference. |
| Femtosecond technology - from basic research to application prospects, T. Kamiya, et. al (Eds.), Springer Series in Photonics, (Springer-Verlag, 1999). | From a communications prospective. |
| Nonlinear Optics, Robert W. Boyd, (Academic Press, 1992). | Great text. Uses cgs units. He gives in to the dark side in the 3rd ed. |
| Quantum Electronics, 3rd ed., Amnon Yariv, (Wiley, 1989). | Older but still useful reference. |
| Optical Electronics, 4th ed., Amnon Yariv, (Saunders College Press, 1991). | Undergraduate version of Quantum Electronics. |
| The Principles Of Nonlinear Optics, Y. R. Shen, (Wiley, 1984). | One of the first books on the subject. Terse treatment, but useful for a broad overview. |
| Nonlinear fiber optics, 3rd ed., Govind P. Agrawal, (Academic Press, 1991). | Great treatment of many third order effects as they apply to propagation in fibers. Good resource in general. Note that application to fibers is increasingly of importantance. |
| The Supercontinuum Laser Source, R. R. Alfano, Ed., (Springer-Verlag, 1989). | Detailed analysis of third order effects and the propagation of intense short pulses. A wide variety of media are considered. |
| The Quantum Theory of Light, 3rd ed., Rodnery Loudon, (Oxford University Press, 2000). | For a long time, this was the text in QO. Other texts are more up-to-date now, but this is still the first one I reach for. |
| Quantum Optics, Marlan O. Scully and M. Suhail Zubairy, (Cambridge University Press, 1997). | Great treatment. |
| Elements Of Quantum Optics, 2nd ed., Pierre Meystre and Murray Sargent III, (Springer-Verlag, 1991). | Also great. |
| Principles of optics, Max Born and Emil Wolf , with contributions by A.B. Bhatia, et al., (Cambridge University Press, 1999). | A classic. Presents a broad and formal treatment. |
| Optics, Eugene Hecht, with contributions by Alfred Zajac, (Addison-Wesley, 1987). | Good text. Less formal than Principles of optics. |
| Fundamental of optics, F. A. Jenkins and H. E. White, (McGraw-Hill, 1976). | Also a good, but less formal text. |
| Fourier transform and its applications, 2nd ed., Ronald Bracewell, (McGraw-Hill, 1986). | The basis for the introduction given on the Fourier transform. Excellent and accessible coverage. |
| Numerical recipes in C, 2nd ed., William Press, Saul Teukolsky, William Vettering and Brian Flannery, (Cambridge University Press, 1995). | Or in Fortran, Fortran 90, ... In addition to providing canned routines for various mathematical functions, each section begins with a clear, terse discussion of the problem. |
| Netlib | Vast source of canned routines. Documentation can be minimal. |