This book aims to introduce the rapidly expanding field of singular optics, notably phase and polarization singularities. Throughout the book, Senthilkumaran presents an explanation of structured optical fields with localized and extended singularities and discusses vortices which carry angular momentum at a level thatrequires minimal mathematics and numerical modeling techniques.

Experimenters working in holography, interferometry, metrology, diffractive optics and polarization optics will all benefit from the broad perspective given on this subject and the numerous illustrations. This book targets readers who know physics but aren't familiar with optical phase singularities and want a thorough introduction to the topic.

Christian Brosseau, Optica, 29 February 2024