Abstract

Volume XXXII contains a number of review articles on recent developments in optics and related subjects. The first article presents an account of guided wave optics on silicon which is a subject of considerable current interest in the broad field of integrated optics, likely to influence the design and fabrication of various optical components. Chapter two provides an overview of the optical implementation of neural networks and discusses their design, models and architecture. The following article deals with applications of the path integral technique to the theory of wave propagation in random media, a technique used with considerable success in the last two decades for solutions of problems encountered in classical statistical wave theory. Methods for obtaining information on the relative location of objects in space are considered in the following chapter and includes an analysis of the potential accuracy and reliability of object location in the presence of additive Gaussian noise and a discussion of optical filters for localization of objects under various circumstances. The fifth article deals with the broad topic of radiation from uniformly moving sources. It considers the Vavilov-Cerenkov radiation, the Doppler effect in media, transition radiation and bremsstralung. These phenomena are of particular importance in the electrodynamics of continuous media, especially in a plasma. In the concluding article nonlinear optical plasmas in atoms and weakly relativistic plasmas are considered. The emphasis is on the specific properties of laser radiation that are important for inducing multiphoton processes and on nonlinear interactions of very intense laser pulses with electrons. All the articles are written by leading authorities in their respective fields, from all over the world.