12 A PARADIGM FOR A WAVE DESCRIPTION OF OPTICAL MEASUREMENTS
12.1 INTRODUCTION
Radiance, which is the density of radiative power in phase space has been the subject of a rich literature over the past 40 and more years (Littlejohn and Winston, 1993; Walther, 1968; 1973; Wolf, 1978). It is a tribute to the work of Adrian Walther, Emil Wolf, and many others that the development of a wave theory of radiance, known as “generalized radiance” continues to the present time. This chapter is complementary to this line of development in that we attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practical radiometry. Radiometric measurements are important in many branches of science and technology. For example, in illumination engineering, the visibilty of displays ...
Get Nonimaging Optics now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
