A Primer on Classical Optics

These are very introductory lectures on Optics, not intended as a full course. They can be even take it as a pre-optics course.

Lecture 1.

A brief introduction to waves, and introduces plane and spherical waves, with wave equations. The time propagation of a wave function is discussed with examples.

Lecture 2.

The Maxwell's equations in vacuum, Poynting vector and Irradiance are discusssed. Several units used to describe the energy density are discussed.

 Lecture 3.
 The Polarization states of a light field is shown. The properties of  Light at interface of two media, in particular, reflection, refraction and transmission are studied. Law of reflection and Snell's law is derived from basic principles. Total internal Reflection and also the existence of Evanescent waves are explained.
 

 Lecture 4.
 This lecture introduces the concept of coherence and interference. Both temporal and spatial coherence is outlined. Young double slit experiment is discussed. The properties of a finite wave train is discussed. Theory of coherence is briefly touched.

 Lecture 5.
 The ray optics is introduced. The various topics cover in this lecture are: Fermat's principle, light at the interface, Snell's law and law of reflection, color dispersion, tracing the light, concave and convex spherical surfaces, reflection at a plane surface, refraction of light: apparent depth and mirage, an optical instrument: human eye, eyedefects and their corrections.