Photoelastic and electro-optic properties of crystals

Photoelastic and electro-optic properties of crystals

Mat. Res. B u l l . , Vol. 17, pp. 137-139, 1982. P ~ n t e d in the USA. 0025-5408/82/010137-03503. 00/10 C o p y ~ g h t (e) 1982 Pergamon P r e s s...

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Mat. Res. B u l l . , Vol. 17, pp. 137-139, 1982. P ~ n t e d in the USA. 0025-5408/82/010137-03503. 00/10 C o p y ~ g h t (e) 1982 Pergamon P r e s s Ltd.

BOOK REVIEW

Analysis of Thermally Stimulated Processes, Reuven Chen and Yoram Kirsh. Pergamon Press Ltd., Elmsford, New York (1981), xv + 361 pp. Price: $60.00 Modern technology makes i t quite simple for the solid state scientist to gather large numbers i f thermograms for the various thermally stimulated processes (TSPs); but alas, what do these traces mean? For many years the workers in this field had to be content with merely "fingerpainting" materials. The major problem s t i l l is the analysis or interpretation of thermograms. The present book is addressed to this need. Although the main emphasis in the book is on analysis, experimental procedure is considered in sufficient depth to facilitate the analysis task. The book represents volume 15 of the International Series on the Science of the Solid State. In the writer's opinion, the authors have succeeded in writing a book for the serious novice as well as for the active researcher. Thus, the different TSPs are usually given a brief but useful historical treatment, orienting the beginner, yet the book contains a detailed critical assessment of the subject matter and is extremely well documented, with some one to two hundred references for each of the chapters. In this rapidly growing field, the researcher will indeed appreciate the fact that the references are heavily weighted in the seventies and include publications for 1980. In the interdisciplinary treatment of TSPs, the authors have attempted to bring the physicist and chemist together by showing the similarity of the basic equations of the various thermally stimulated phenomena. Emanuel P. Manche Department of Natural Sciences York College of The City University of New York Photoelastic and Electro-Optic Properties of Crystals, T. S. Narasimhamurty. F~enum Press, New York and London (1981), xxix + 512 pp. Price: $37.50 In the foreword of this book, Prof. Warren P. Mason writes: "This comprehensive treatise reviews, for the f i r s t time, all the essential work over the past 160 years on the photoelastic and the closely related linear and quadratic electro-optic effect in isotropic and crystalline materials. Emphasis is placed on the phenomenal growth of the subject during the past decade and a half with the advent of the laser, with the use of high-frequency 137

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Vo]. 17, No. 1

acousto-optic and the electro-optic techniques, all of which have offered a feedback to the wide interest in these two areas of solid-state physics." Beginning with the fundamental discovery of photoelastic birefringence in glasses and crystals by Brewster in 1815, the author traces the development of the technologically important photoelastic and electro-optic effects as developed by Pockels, and examines various experimental techniques employed in other related studies. This book consists of eight chapters, which are based on a lot of the essential references during the past 160 years. A number of papers are by the author himself. I should briefly review each chapter. Chapter I: Photoelasticity of Crystals, Introduction, gives a brief historical survey, including the discovery of the phenomenon of photoelasticity. Chapter 2: Mathematical Tools, Tensor Properties of Crystals and Geometrical Crystallography, provides a mathematical background for the later chapters. Pockels, who analysed the photoelastic effect of crystals, also produced a phenomenological theory of this effect for all crystal classes. These are presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4: Elasticity of Crystals, is important for an understanding of the experimental methods discussed in the next chapter. Chapter 5: Experimental Methods of Determining the Photoelastic Cpnstants, is very useful for experimentalists, and includes descriptions of ultrasonic methods for the study of the photoelastic behavior of glasses and crystals. In the hands of H. Mueller, these methods have been developed to their full potential. Chapter 6: Atomistic Theory of Photoelasticity of Cubic Crystals, includes some of the theoretical works on photoelasticity of cubic crystals contributed by H. Mueller and others. A knowledge of the pizoelectric effect in crystals is an essential prerequisite to understanding Pockel's linear electro-optic effect. This is discused in Chapter 7: Piezoelectricity. Chapter 8: Electro-Optic and Kerr Quadratic Electro-Optic Effect, describes how these two effects enable some electro-optic modulators to generate very short light pulses. This chapter should also be interesting in connection with the development of laser applications. For the benfit of a wide circle of readers, the book contains an extensive bibliography, including some of the many important investigations not directly referred to in the text. Considerable care was taken to make the bibliography as complete as possible up to the end of 1979. The volume is very well organized, and will be particularly helpful to the readers who specialize in solidstate physics, crystal optics and techniques of laser. Yuhuan Xu Department of Physics Zhongshan University Canton People's Republic of China Polymer Blends: Processin9, Morphology and Properties, E. Martuscelli. Plenum Publishing Corp., New York (1981), 510 pp. Price: $59.50 Few truly new polymers are being developed, and even fewer of these will be produced commercially. Polymer scientists have therefore turned their attention toward the optimization of the properties of polymeric materials through blending or alloying of two or more existing polymers. This text is a recent addition to the literature in this field of multicomponent polymer systems. I t is a compilation of papers (7 authored or co-authored by Ezio Martusc e l l i ) from the First Joint Italian-Polish Seminar on Multicomponent Polymeric Systems held in Capri, Italy in 1979. All but one of the contributed papers