Tunable Laser Applications, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14

Optical Quantities and Conversions of Units

F. J. Duarte

14.1 Introduction

In this book, electromagnetic radiation is described in both frequency and wavelength units. For the sake of completeness, a brief description of the identities relating these units is provided here, in addition to relevant physical constants commonly used throughout the book.

The basic relation between wavelength, λ, and frequency, ν, is given by

$\lambda =\frac{c}{\nu }$ (14.1)

where:

c is the speed of light

c is given in meters per second

λ is in meters

ν is in Hz

Standard physical constants, such as c, are given in Table 14.1. The values of these constants are those listed by the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) available at the time of publication. ...