21世纪光科学与工程:
21世纪光科学与工程.pdf
书籍作者:美国国家研究理事所
THE FIELD OF OPTICS
We live in a world bathed in light. We see with light, plants draw energy from light, and light is at the core
of technologies from computing to surgical techniques. The field of optics, the subject of this report, concerns
harnessing light to perform useful tasks.
Light influences our lives today in new ways that we could never have imagined just a few decades ago. As
we move into the next century, light will play an even more significant role, enabling a revolution in world fiber-
optic communications, new modalities in the practice of medicine, a more effective national defense, exploration
of the frontiers of science, and much more.
We are beginning to see the fruits of the scientific discoveries of the last three or four decades. The
development of the laser in the 1960s produced light with a property never seen before on Earth: coherence.
Coherent light can be directed, focused, and propagated in new ways that are impossible for incoherent light.
This property of laser light has made possible fiber-optic communications, compact disks, laser surgery, and a
host of other applications—in all, a multitrillion-dollar worldwide market. Applications of incoherent light
abound as well, including optical lithography systems for patterning computer chips, high-resolution
microscopes, adaptive optics for Earth-based astronomy, infrared sensors for everything from remote controls to
night vision equipment, and new high-efficiency lighting sources.
Although optics is pervasive in modern life, its role is that of a technological enabler: It is essential, but
typically it plays a supporting role in a larger system. Central issues for this field include the following:
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