Light and Its Many Wonders

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2015 as the International Year of Light (IYL 2015). The IYL was to recognize the tremendous applications of light in our everyday lives: from the benefits of sunlight, to the intricate processes in our eyes, to holography, to fiber optic communications across oceans, to extremely important applications of lasers from eye surgery to drilling holes in steel and to numerous other areas. From its inception, The National Academy of Sciences, India (the oldest Science Academy in India) is committed to bringing scientific developments to the benefit of the society at large. Keeping this in mind, and as a part of the celebration of IYL 2015, the Academy entrusted the editors to bring out a book in which various aspects of light and light-based technologies will be lucidly described by experts with the aim to enthuse young students, teachers and the general public to get interested in studying more about light and be aware of its phenomenal applications. The editors were very fortunate to get a large number of experts to agree to contribute to this book. Of course, there are many other very interesting areas which could have been covered. We hope that the book will be able to enthuse the younger generation to study more about light.

Ajoy Ghatak did his B.Sc. from Agra College, M.Sc. from University of Delhi and Ph.D. from Cornell University and was a Research Associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He joined lIT Delhi in 1966 where he is currently Visiting Professor of Physics. He is the author of several books, including his texts on OPTICS, Fiber Optics (coauthored with Professor K. Thyagarajan) and on Quantum Mechanics (coauthored with Professor S. Lokanathan). He is a recipient of several awards including the 2008 SPIE Educator award and the 2003 Optical Society of America Esther Hoffman Beller award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to optical science and engineering education; he is also a recipient of the 1979 CSIR S.S. Bhatnagar award, the 16th Khwarizmi International award, the International Commission for Optics Galileo Galilei award and the Indian Physics Association M.M. Chugani award for his research contributions in Fiber Optics.

Anirban Pathak is a theoretical physicist. He did his Ph.D. from Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India. Subsequently, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Freie University, Berlin. He joined JIlT, Noida in 2002 and at present he is a Professor of Physics at JIlT. He is actively involved in teaching and research related to several aspects of quantum optics and quantum-information. He is a member of The National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) and several other professional bodies. He is a visiting scientist at Palacky University, Czech Republic. He has recently, written an introductory textbook on Quantum Communication and Computation.

V.P. Sharma has been the Founder Director, National Institute of Malaria Research New Delhi. He has published more than 400 scientific papers and has edited many books; he is FNA, FASc, FNASc, FAMS, FTWAS, and Fellow of several other learned societies. He is the recipient of many national and international awards viz., WHO Darling Foundation Prize, ICMR Ambedkar and MOT Iyenger; Green Scientist, Om Prakash Bhasin, Gujar Mal Modi, etc. He is presently NASI’s Distinguished Professor and ICMR Chair in Public Health Research at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. He is a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee.