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.

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.

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.

This volume represents the most complete, up-to-date compilation of wavelengths of lasers in all media. Divided by type - solid, liquid, and gas - and listed in order of increasing wavelength, Handbook of Laser Wavelengths includes: crystalline paramagnetic ion lasers glass lasers color center lasers semiconductor lasers polymer lasers liquid and solid-state dye lasers rare earth liquid lasers neutral atom, ion, and molecular gas lasers extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray lasers free electron lasers nuclear-pumped lasers lasers in nature lasers without inversion Brief descriptions of each type of laser are presented, followed by tables listing the laser wavelength, lasing element or medium, host, transition, and primary literature citations. A special section on commercial lasers is an added featured. Handbook of Laser Wavelengths singularly serves as the essential reference for scientists and engineers searching for laser sources for specific applications as well as a survey of the developments that have occurred since the advent of the laser.

SCOTT (Copy 1): From the John Holmes Library collection.