This book provides a comprehensive overview of laser sources and their applications in various fields of science, industry, and technology. After an introduction to the basics of laser physics, different laser types and materials for lasers are summarized in the context of a historical survey, outlining the evolution of the laser over the past five decades. This includes, amongst other aspects, gas lasers, excimer lasers, the wide range of solid-state and semiconductor lasers, and femtosecond and other pulsed lasers where particular attention is paid to high-power sources. Subsequent chapters address related topics such as laser modulation and nonlinear frequency conversion. In closing, the enormous importance of the laser is demonstrated by highlighting its current applications in everyday life and its potential for future developments. Typical applications in advanced material processing, medicine and biophotonics as well as plasma and X-ray generation for nanoscale lithography are discussed.

The book provides broad and topical coverage of laser photonics and opto-electronics, focusing on significant findings and recent advances rather than in-depth theoretical studies. Thus, it is intended not only for university students and engineers, but also for scientists and professionals applying lasers in biomedicine, material processing and everyday consumer products. Further, it represents essential reading for engineers using or developing high-power lasers for scientific or industrial applications.

Autorentext

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Joachim Eichler has been full professor and director of the Laser Group at the Institute of Optics and Atomic Physics (IOAP) of the Technical University of Berlin since 1972. He was project officer on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Science BMBF and from 1980 to 1983 guest Member of Technical Staff at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey/USA. In addition, he served as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the TUB. In 1998, he joined the Supervisory Board of Laser Medicine Technology GmbH Berlin and worked as CTO and CEO from 2003 to 2013. Together with his coworkers, he developed new diode-pumped solid state and Raman lasers, elaborated diffraction at dynamic gratings as a new topic of nonlinear optics, and used light scattering and spectroscopy with ultrashort laser pulses for medical diagnostics and biophotonics. In 1982 he became chairman of the Quantum Optics association of the German Physical and Society and the Society of Applied Optics. Projects with industrial applications include the preparation and characterization of multilayer systems for mirrors and filters, fiber optics and silicon nanophotonics. His worldwide cooperation is documented in more than 500 journal publications, 10 patents and several books in German, English and Russian language.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Eichler graduated at the Technical University of Berlin in atomic physics and got his PhD at the University of Karlsruhe in nuclear physics. He joined Bosch company where he worked several years on optical memories. 1975 he became Professor of physics at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin and later at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. He performed research on atomic and laser physics in Germany, Brazil and the United States. His teaching activities were related mainly on medical physics, especially laser technology in medicine. He published numerous scientific papers and 8 books on basic physics, lasers and holography. In the last years he produced holograms for applications in design, graphics and art. He is cofounder of the Academy of Laser Safety in Berlin which offers services to laser users.

Dr. Oliver Lux received his diploma in physics from the Technical University of Berlin in 2009, where he also earned his PhD in 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Hans Joachim Eichler. His doctoral research focused on stimulated Raman scattering in crystalline materials as well as on high-power and frequency-stable solid-state lasers for trace gas detection. As a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Optics and Atomic Physics, he was also concerned with the development of fiber-optic sensors for spectroscopic applications. In 2015, he was awarded a fellowship by the German Research Foundation to pursue postdoctoral research on diamond Raman lasers at the MQ Photonics Research Centre, Macquarie University in Sydney. Afterwards, he joined the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany where he is currently involved in the validation of the spaceborne wind lidar mission Aeolus of the European Space Agency. Dr. Lux has co-authored more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals and was a recipient of the Green Photonics Young Scientist Award by the Fraunhofer Society in 2014.

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