Page 23 - Tunable Lasers Handbook

6 F. J. Duarte

subject matter in terms of physical state, that is, gas, liquid, and solid-state lasers
consecutively. Here, note that because dye lasers have been demonstrated to lase
in the three states of matter, their positioning between gas and solid state is quite
appropriate. Free-electron lasers are listed at the end of the broadly tunable
coherent sources given their uniqueness as physical systems.
Chapter 2 treats narrow-linewidth oscillators and intracavity dispersion.
The subject matter in this chapter is applicable to both discretely and broadly
tunable lasers in the gaseous, liquid, or solid state. Chapter 3 addresses tunable
excimer lasers including ArF, KrF, XeC1, and XeF. Chapter 4 is dedicated to
tunable CO, lasers oscillating in the cw regime. These two chapters deal with
discretely tunable lasers in the gaseous phase.
Broadly tunable sources and lasers are considered in Chapters 5 to 9. Chap-
ter 5 deals with dye lasers and Chapter 6 with transition metal solid-state lasers.
The latter chapter includes material on Ti3+:A1,03 and Cr3+:BeAl,04 lasers.
Chapter 7 considers the principles of operation and a variety of crystals used in
optical parametric oscillators. The subject of tunable semiconductor lasers is
treated in Chapter 8 with emphasis on external cavity and wavelength tuning
techniques. Chapter 9 provides an up-to-date survey of free-electron lasers.
For historical information and basic references on the various types of tun-
able lasers, the reader should refer to the literature cited in the chapters. The
reader should also be aware that the degree of emphasis on a particular laser
class follows the judgment of each contributing author. In this regard, for exam-
ple, high-pressure pulsed CO, lasers are only marginally considered and the
reader should refer to the cited literature for further details. A further topic that is
related to the subject of interest, but not a central objective of this volume, is fre-
quency shifting via nonlinear optics techniques such as Raman shifting.

REFERENCES

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(1992).
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213-309, Academic, New York (1984).
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STS Press, McLean, VA (1989).
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Academic, New York (1990).