This book covers the history of lasers with nuclear pumping (Nuclear Pumped Lasers, NPLs). This book showcases the most important results and stages of NPL development in The Russian Federal Nuclear Center (VNIIEF) as well as other Russian and international laboratories, including laboratories in the United States. The basic science and technology behind NPLs along with potential applications are covered throughout the book. As the first comprehensive discussion of NPLs, students, researchers, and application engineers interested in high energy lasers will find this book to be an extremely valuable source of information about these unique lasers.

This book focuses on Nuclear-Pumped Laser (NPL) technology and provides the reader with a fundamental understanding of NPLs, a review of research in the field and exploration of large scale NPL system design and applications. Early chapters look at the fundamental properties of lasers, nuclear-pumping and nuclear reactions that may be used as drivers for nuclear-pumped lasers. The book goes on to explore the efficient transport of energy from the ionizing radiation to the laser medium and then the operational characteristics of existing nuclear-pumped lasers. Models based on Mathematica, explanations and a tutorial all assist the reader’s understanding of this technology. Later chapters consider the integration of the various systems involved in NPLs and the ways in which they can be used, including beyond the military agenda. As readers will discover, there are significant humanitarian applications for high energy/power lasers, such as deflecting asteroids, space propulsion, power transmission and mining. This book will appeal to graduate students and scholars across diverse disciplines, including nuclear engineering, laser physics, quantum electronics, gaseous electronics, optics, photonics, space systems engineering, materials, thermodynamics, chemistry and physics.

Until recently, ceramic materials were considered unsuitable for optics due to the numerous scattering sources, such as grain boundaries and residual pores. However, in the 1990s the technology to generate a coherent beam from ceramic materials was developed, and a highly efficient laser oscillation was realized. In the future, the technology derived from the development of the ceramic laser could be used to develop new functional passive and active optics. Co-authored by one of the pioneers of this field, the book describes the fabrication technology and theoretical characterization of ceramic material properties. It describes novel types of solid lasers and other optics using ceramic materials to demonstrate the application of ceramic gain media in the generation of coherent beams and light amplification. This is an invaluable guide for physicists, materials scientists and engineers working on laser ceramics.

Lasers continue to be an amazingly robust field of activity. Anyone seeking a photon source is now confronted with an enormous number of possible lasers and laser wavelengths to choose from, but no single, comprehensive source to help them make that choice. The Handbook of Lasers provides an authoritative compilation of lasers, their properties, and original references in a readily accessible form. Organized by lasing media-solids, liquids, and gases-each section is subdivided into distinct laser types. Each type carries a brief description, followed by tables listing the lasing element or medium, host, lasing transition and wavelength, operating properties, primary literature citations, and, for broadband lasers, reported tuning ranges. The importance and value of the Handbook of Lasers cannot be overstated. Serving as both an archive and as an indicator of emerging trends, it reflects the state of knowledge and development in the field, provides a rapid means of obtaining reference data, and offers a pathway to the literature. It contains data useful for comparison with predictions and for developing models of processes, and may reveal fundamental inconsistencies or conflicts in the data.

The Tenth International Workshop on "Laser Interaction and Related Plasma Phenomena" was held November 11-15, 1991, at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. This conference joined physicists from 11 countries (Australia, Canada, China, France, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, united Kingdom, USA, and the USSR). This meeting was marked by the inauguration of the EDWARD TELLER MEDAL FOR ACHIEVEMENTS IN FUSION ENERGY. This medal served as a celebration of the tenth conference in the 22-year series and as an opportunity to honor one of the world's greatest physicists and a leading pioneer in this field: Edward Teller. Four medals were awarded in the inaugural ceremony. The first recipient of the medal was Nobel Laureate Nikolai G. Basov, who served for many years as Director of the LebedevPhysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In his address to Edward Teller, Dr. Basov underlined that Dr. Teller was the first in history to produce an exothermal nuclear fusion reaction, the mechanism that may now lead to an inexhaustive, environmentally clean, and low cost energy source in the future. This goal, he stressed, becomes more crucial as the greenhouse effect may not permit burning of fossil fuels for much longer. Basov also reviewed events leading the International Quantum Electronics Conferences of 1963 where he disclosed the first publication on laser fusion and that of 1968 where he reported the first observation of fusion neutrons using a laser-irradiated target. The second recipient was John H.