Among the many intense light sources, excimer lasers have a unique set of properties that place them at the forefront of tooling for material processing. Their extreme versatility means that they can be used in many areas of materials science and medicine. But three conditions need to be fulfilled in order that their versatility be truly appreciated and exploited: the characteristics and limitations of the sources must be known; the basic excimer laser processes should become reasonably widely known; and problems in search of a solution should be clearly identified.
Excimer Lasers covers all three of these points in an instructive and logical way. Probably for the first time, both instrumental and fundamental aspects of excimer laser interaction with matter are presented side-by-side, with examples drawn from the widest range of materials.
The articles gathered here are tutorial in their nature, thus making them suitable for a wide readership, from recent graduates and postgraduate students to those established scientists entering the field, all of whom could not find a better, nor more authoritative work with which to start their reading.

Inhalt
Content.- Excimer Lasers: Current Status and Future Developments.- Compact Phototriggered Switchless Lasers and Very Large X-Ray Preionized Excimer Lasers: Innovative Technologies of New Excimer Lasers.- Maintenance Issues of Excimer Lasers in a Production or Industrial Research Environment.- Pulsed-Laser Ablation.- Photophysical Ablation of Organic Polymers.- Dynamics of the Vapor Plume in Laser Materials Ablation.- Surface and Three-dimensional Processing by Laser Chemical Vapor Deposition.- Chemical Vapour Deposition of Crystalline and Amorphous Carbon, Silicon and Germanium Films.- Laser Excitation and Detection of Surface Acoustic Wave Pulses.- Gas and Adsorbed-Phase UV Photochemistry of Tetramethyltin (TMT) Probed by In-Situ Optical Diagnostics and Surface-Sensitive Techniques.- Materials Analysis Based on Quantitative Laser Ionization.- Time-resolved Diagnostics of Excimer Laser-Generated Ablation Plasmas used for Pulsed Laser Deposition.- Excimer Laser Induced Permanent Electrical Conductivity and Nanostructures in Polymers.- Photoablation and Surface Modification of Polymers with the Excimer Laser Radiation.- Process of Generating 3d-Microstructures with Excimer Lasers.- Non-Coherent Structure Formation on UV-Laser Irradiated Polymers.- An Innovative High Repetition Rate Shot Per Shot Acquisition System and its Application to a New Kind of Tropospheric LIDAR Measurements.- Detection of Heavy Metals in Environmental Samples Using Laser Spark Analysis.- Applications of Excimer Laser Based Remote Sensing Systems to Problems Related to Water Pollution.- Applications of Lasers in Microelectronics and Micromechanics.- Excimer Laser for in situ Processing in Microelectronics.- Soft X-ray Radiation from Excimer-Driven Laser-plasma Sources: Application to Submicron Lithography.- Excimer Laser Beam Interaction with Metals and Ceramics Part I: Fundamental Aspects.- Excimer Laser Beam Interaction with Metals and Ceramics Part II: Materials Aspects and Applications.- Pulsed Excimer Laser Crystallization and Doping for the Fabrication of Poly-Si and SiGe TFTs.- Excimer Laser Surface Treatment of a S.G. Cast Iron: Possible Application for the Running-in Part of the Automotive Motors.- Transient Structural Modifications of Sintered Commercial Aluminum Nitride Ceramics Resulting from Low Fluence Excimer Laser Irradiation.- How to Implement New Technology on a Production Line: Via-Hole Drilling with KrF-Laser as an Example.- Coronary Angioplasty with Excimer Laser.- Corneal Optical Zone Reshaping with Excimer Laser.- Laser Induced Fluorescence as a Tool for Atherosclerotic Tissue Characterization During Excimer Laser Aided Ablation.- List of participants.