Cover

Contents

Jean-Claude Diels and Ladan Arissian

Lasers

Related Titles

Paschotta, R.
Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology
2008
ISBN: 978-3-527-40828-3

Hecht, J.
Understanding Lasers An Entry-Level Guide
2008
ISBN: 978-0-470-08890-6

Smith, F. G., King, T. A., Wilkins, D.
Optics and Photonics An Introduction
2007
ISBN: 978-0-470-01784-5

Meschede, D.
Optics, Light and Lasers The Practical Approach to Modern Aspects of Photonics and Laser Physics
2007
ISBN: 978-3-527-40628-9

Quimby, R. S.
Photonics and Lasers An Introduction
2006
ISBN: 978-0-471-71974-8

The Authors

Prof. Jean-Claude Diels
University of New Mexico
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy
1919 Lomas Blvd
Albuquerque, NM 87131
USA

Dr. Ladan Arissian
University of New Mexico
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
Center for High Tech Materials
1313 Goddard SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
USA

All books published by Wiley-VCH are carefully produced. Nevertheless, authors, editors, and publisher do not warrant the information contained in these books, including this book, to be free of errors. Readers are advised to keep in mind that statements, data, illustrations, procedural details or other items may inadvertently be inaccurate.

Library of Congress Card No.: applied for

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at .

All rights reserved (including those of translation into other languages). No part of this book may be reproduced in any form - by photoprinting, microfilm, or any other means - nor transmitted or translated into a machine language without written permission from the publishers. Registered names, trademarks, etc. used in this book, even when not specifically marked as such, are not to be considered unprotected by law.

ISBN Print 978-3-527-41039-2

ISBN ePDF 978-3-527-64005-8

ISBN oBook 978-3-527-64003-4

ISBN ePub 978-3-527-64004-1

To my mother Maryam and my daughter Vida.

Ladan Arissian

To my daughter Natacha, who taught me that music and lasers can live in harmony and my wife Marlies, for having patiently endured the clickety-clack of a keyboard as evening conversation.

Jean-Claude Diels

Preface

There is no need to convince anyone of the importance of lasers. The growth of this technology and its presence in our daily lives cannot be overemphasized. It can be felt as simply as flipping a switch, like using a laser pointer or a scanner, but there are times that its use is mysterious and glorified, such as in the case of the laser gun, Star Wars and laser induced lightning. The aim of this book is to provide a better intuition about this technology and its applications. We felt that knowing about lasers should not be restricted to scientists and engineers in the field, or to those who are direct users of lasers. It can and has to be shared with everybody. We hope this book will inspire the reader to have meaningful dreams about the future of this technology and its applications, and to alleviate confusion and misuse of science in public media.

We do not believe that science should be boring, or be the prerogative of strange people with unbrushed hair, big glasses, and torn t-shirts. Science is for everyone’s benefit. When a baby rolls a ball or throws a stone she/he starts learning mechanics. With a simple activity, a lot of intuition is established about mass, velocity, and gravity. This is why even in a scientific community a common method to understand a subject is via mechanical analogies. Any physics student has a tough experience at his/her first exposure to quantum mechanics; only a carefree baby can easily assimilate new concepts. We thought that a way to gain a better understanding about optics and in particular about lasers, is to discuss them in an informal way. Some details are kept, some are missed, which is the nature of an imperfect work.

Who cares about lasers? Of course we do, because they are at the center of our job and lives, and we think that others should care as well. Lasers play an important role in the evolution of technology. A wheel, which is a symbol of the mechanical era, served to move objects around, and facilitated transportation. With mechanical technology came another leap in human power and mobility. In scientific aspects it helped us understand the mechanics of the universe, and planetary motions in the sky. In biology it gave a better picture of the mechanics of motion and bone structure. Then came the finer technology of electricity, enabling the transport of energy through electrons in wires. Understanding electricity is not so straightforward, and the experience of an electric shock is not commonly sensed as a knife cut.

Having had electricity around for more than a century, we have gained some intuition about voltage and current, although they are not as clear concepts as speed and position. At the start of the twentieth century quantum mechanics appeared and puzzled scientists for a long time. It brought with it all new concepts, but it was accepted, in the same manner as we have become used to talking to someone over the phone, or meeting a friend on a computer screen, rather than the traditional face to face interaction. We extend our experience and senses with technology. Just like the caveman who lived in bare nature might not have known all the trees and bushes, we may not know all the scientific reasons and backgrounds of the technologies we have at hand.

There is a notion that, after the mechanic and electric eras it is time for a photonic era, and that the laser is the greatest manifestation of it. The laser is not a stand alone subject: it could not have been realized without fine machining, precision optics, and controlled electrical power. It is a magnifying box for photons, not by collecting photons in one position like a lens, but by putting them in phase in a stimulation process. With the power of a laser we can mimic the sun in a laboratory, tame electrons inside molecules and atoms, tatoo a biological cell, have faster and more precise clocks, and eventually guide lightning towards our mean neighbor’s house.

Chapter 1 is a scenic route to the laser. It is an overview of the radiation of light, the properties of the laser, the different types of lasers, properties of the beams and of pulses, the generation of ultrashort pulses, ultra-high intensities, and so on. We have dropped many details and concepts to make this chapter as short as possible. Our purist colleagues may not appreciate our shortcuts and analogies, but this book is not intended for them. We intentionally omitted naming any of the great scientists who have contributed to the birth and growth of the laser. Doing otherwise would have been an unfair selection among the tens of thousands of scientists who have been involved in materializing the dream of creating and understanding laser sources and their applications.

The rest of the book is organized in seven chapters to cover some industrial, medical, military, and scientific applications of the laser, with many important application having been left out in the interest of brevity. The laser has surreptitiously entered so many aspects of our lives, that a comprehensive listing of all its uses may become as boring as reading a dictionary. The history of the discovery of the laser, and anecdotes about ensuing competition in patent recognition, has already been published [1--5]. Instead, we present an informal conversation about lasers, rather than an explanation of their technical and scientific aspects, which has been published by others [6].

In view of all the other contributions, why did we dare to write this book? Because we thought that our “cartoon” approach to science is unique and might reach a different audience than existing textbooks. This book was started as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the laser. For that occasion, we intended to make an overview of all the applications and how they relate to the exceptional properties of the laser.

If you expect to have acquired a textbook, please return this book as fast as possible to the source. Physics is very often explained with simple analogies (which would make a rigorous mind cringe).

No self-respecting science book could be published without exhaustive references. This is not a self-respecting science book. If we had to give credit to all the scientists in the world who have contributed to the field, the content would dwarf the phone directory of New York city. We have purposely omitted citing any names.

This book was started on the initiative of Ladan Arissian, a poet and physicist, as you will clearly sense from the style of various chapters. She has a broad educational background in various disciplines of physics (nuclear, condensed matter, and optical science). In addition to being a research physicist, she dreams of being a teacher and strives to present science in new ways.

This book would not have been published if it had not been ornamented with the name of Professor Jean-Claude Diels, who was willing to sacrifice his reputation as a serious science writer of “ultrafast laser pulse phenomena” [7]. He has decades of experience in tweaking and building impossible lasers and trying to understand the effect of each optical component on the optical pulse. He has never closed the laser box and refused to reduce it to a rectangle in a diagram. He only agreed to coauthor this book if he could insert his cartoons in the text.

Our enthusiasm about lasers and their applications is just a minute reflection of the work of men and women in science, bearing all the frustration and obstacles of conducting research. We are in debt to all scientists, engineers, technicians, and students whose persistence and patience have introduced the laser in all fields of science as well as in our daily lives.

Albuquerque, March 2011

Jean-Claude Diels Ladan Arissian

References

1 Hecht, J. (2005) Beam: The Race to Make the Laser, Oxford University Press, New York.

2 Hecht, J. (1992) Laser Pioneers, Academic Press, Boston.

3 Taylor, N. (2000) Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War, Simon & Schuster, New York.

4 Bertolloti, M. (2005) The History of the Laser, Institute of Physics Publications, Bristol, Philadelphia.

5 Townes, C.H. (1999) How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist, Oxford University Press, New York.

6 Hecht, J. (2008) Understanding Lasers, 3rd edn, IEEE press, John Wiley & Sons.

7 Diels, J.C. and Rudolph, W. (2006) Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena, 2nd edn, Elsevier, Boston.