Random lasers are the simplest sources of lasers, since they exhibit stimulated emission without a cavity, with the feedback provided by scattering in a gain medium. First proposed in the late 60's, random lasers have grown into a large research field. This book reviews the history and the state of the art of random lasers, providing an outline of the basic models explaining their behavior and describing the recent advances in the field. The major focus is solid-state random lasers, however, random lasers based on liquid dyes with scatterers are also briefly treated. Written with mostly self-contained chapters, Solid-State Random Lasers gives scientists or engineers interested in a particular aspect directly access to the relevant information. Researchers entering the field of random lasers will find in the book an excellent overview, while scientists already working in the field can use the book as a reference source.

From the reviews:

"All the technical chapters are supported by useful reference lists and all contain good quality diagrams. The book also includes an extensive index to enable easy reference to key information. Overall the book is very well written and achieves its primary goal of conveying the achievements in random lasers to a wide audience . Readers of this book may well be the people who find the spark to ignite an explosion of activity in random laser research and development." (Prof. K.A. Shore, Contemporary Physics, Vol. 48 (2), 2007)

Inhalt
Lasers with Nonresonant Feedback and Laserlike Emission from Powders: Early Ideas and Experiments.- Neodymium Random Lasers: Experimental Studies of Stimulated Emission.- Propagation of Light in Neodymium Random Lasers.- Theoretical Modeling of Neodymium Random Lasers.- Engineering Aspects of Neodymium Random Lasers: External Seeding, Design, and Second Harmonic Generation.- Random Lasers Pumped with Electron Beam.- Semiconductor Random Lasers.- Dye and Polymer Random Lasers.- Other Types of Solid-State Random Lasers.- Applications of Random Lasers.