Lasers

Silfvast, William T., CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, Univ. of Central Florida

doi:10.1117/3.784938.ch5

Lasers

Book: Fundamentals of Photonics

Editor(s): Chandra Roychoudhuri

Author(s): William Silfvast

Published: 2008

https://doi.org/10.1117/3.784938.ch5

Author Affiliations +

Abstract

Lasers are devices that amplify or increase the intensity of light to produce a highly directional, high-intensity beam that typically has a very pure frequency or wavelength. They come in sizes ranging from approximately one-tenth the diameter of a human hair to that of a very large building. Lasers produce powers ranging from nanowatts to a billion trillion watts (1021 W) for very short bursts. They produce wavelengths or frequencies ranging from the microwave region and infrared to the visible, ultraviolet, vacuum ultraviolet, and into the soft-X-ray spectral regions. They generate the shortest bursts of light that man has yet produced, or approximately five million-billionths of a second.

PDF download only.

CHAPTER 5
44 PAGES

DOWNLOAD PDF SAVE TO MY LIBRARY