1 Preface

This book originated while teaching Advanced Optical Imaging in a master course applied physics at Delft University of Technology in 2021. In that course we were using the well known work Introduction to Fourier Optics from Goodman. This book has been the standard work for many years. However, while teaching from this book we observed that it was quite old with many references to analog techniques. Moreover, in our opinion there can be substantial improvements in the notations and explanations of some Fourier optics principles. Also the field of optical imaging has strongly evolved in the direction of computational optics, something that is not well supported in the book.

The aim of this open online book is to bring together the most important aspects of Fourier optics, improve the notation, and use new tools for the visualization of Fourier optics concepts, as well as new interactive learning possibilities. We will continuously update the chapters. The book is greatly indebted to other great pieces of work

• Introduction to Fourier Optics, by Joseph Goodman

• Introduction to Optical Microscopy, by Jerome Mertz

• Principles of Optics, by Emil Wolf and Max Born

• Advanced Optical Imaging Theory, by Min Gu

• Mathematical Foundations of Imaging, Tomography and Wavefield Inversion, by Anthony Devaney

For notation we have chosen to use the physics convention for the complex number $i=\sqrt{-1}$ instead of $j$. However, to enhance the distinction between $x$ components of wavevectors and spatial frequencies we use the electrical engineering notation where I write $2\pi f_x$ instead of $k_x$. In addition, the use of $f_x$ instead of $k_x$ avoids the addition of pre-factors in the inverse Fourier transform.

We made this book in Jupyter Book format. Please notify the authors of any issues with the book so that we can update it. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Delft 2023 Jeroen Kalkman and Kristin Grussmayer