This book presents the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary review of the rapidly developing field of air lasing. In most applications of lasers, such as cutting and engraving, the laser source is brought to the point of service where the laser beam is needed to perform its function. However, in some important applications such as remote atmospheric sensing, placing the laser at a convenient location is not an option. Current sensing schemes rely on the detection of weak backscattering of ground-based, forward-propagating optical probes, and possess limited sensitivity. The concept of air lasing (or atmospheric lasing) relies on the idea that the constituents of the air itself can be used as an active laser medium, creating a backward-propagating, impulsive, laser-like radiation emanating from a remote location in the atmosphere. This book provides important insights into the current state of development of air lasing and its applications.

Provides a comprehensive, up-to-date summary of the very actively investigated field of remote atmospheric lasing Contains contributions by authors who have each made important recent contributions to the field Offers content of interest to a broad and very interdisciplinary scientific community Represents the first comprehensive book on this new and rapidly developing field

Autorentext

Pavel Polykin is an Associate Research Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He received his PhD degree from Texas A&M University in 2000. His current research interests lie in the fields of femtosecond laser science and ultra-intense nonlinear optics. He has co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed research articles, holds 11 US patents, and has delivered numerous invited talks at international conferences on laser physics and optics.

Ya Cheng is a professor at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, SIOM. He received his B.S. degree from Fudan University in 1993, and Ph.D degree from SIOM in 1998. Since 1995, he has been working in the ultrafast photonics related fields. His current research interests include femtosecond laser micromachining, ultrafast nonlinear optics, and strong field laser physics. He has published morethan 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and given more than 100 invited talks at international conferences.

Inhalt
Preface.- 1 Diagnostic properties of two-photon pumped stimulated emission in atmospheric species.- 2 High-gain air lasing by multi-photon pumping of atomic species.- 3 The role of electron collisions in lasing in neutral and singly ionized molecular nitrogen.- 4 Molecular rotational effects in free-space N_2^+ lasers induced by strong-field ionization.- 5 Filament-initiated lasing in neutral molecular nitrogen.- 6 Filament-assisted impulsive Raman spectroscopy.- Index.