Field Guide to Diffractive Optics (Spie Field Guides)

If you're looking for information on diffractive lens design, you'll rarely find what you're looking for in the standard optics texts. With regard to those, the "Handbook of Optics," Vol. II, has a binary optics chapter, as does Robert Fischer's "Optical System Design." That being said, however, I find Soskind's field guide and O'Shea's "Diffractive Optics: Design, Fabrication, and Test" go into greater depth, particularly with regard to broadband correction. And, although I'm a ZEMAX man, the Code V "Diffractive Properties" Advanced Topics presentation is useful, too, along with several Canon patents. . . .While I think this book is great, it could go the extra mile by telling everyone point blank how to take a "Binary 2" from ZEMAX and specify it on a drawing. No one has come out with that yet, so were all left as designers to figure that out. . . .

An excellent, concise, and fairly comprehensive overview of diffractive optics. It makes for a great reference that puts many of the concepts in one location. I certainly recommend this for both my fellow practicing engineers and students.