LASERS Fundamentals And Application

LASERS: Fundamentals and Applications serves as a vital textbook for an undergraduate or a graduate course on lasers and their applications. Ever since the invention of the laser in 1960, lasers have assumed tremendous importance in the fields of science, engineering and technology because of their special characteristics and diverse uses in basic research and countless technological applications. This book provides a coherent presentation of the basic physics behind the way lasers work, their important characteristics and some of their most important applications.This book is expected to help the student understand the basic principles of lasers and how to apply the concepts to practical situations. There are a number of numerical examples scattered throughout the book for helping the student to have a better appreciation of the concepts; the problems at the end of each chapter should provide the student with gaining a better understanding of the basics and help in applying the concepts to practical situations. The applications discussed in the book are some of the most important ones making use of the special characteristics possessed by lasers. The book also includes Nobel lectures of several scientists which should give the reader some sense of perspective of the history of the development of the laser and also its applications.Some of the topics discussed in detail include: Laser rate equations, Semiclassical theory of the laser, Quantization of the electromagnetic field, Coherent state, Squeezed state, Optical resonators, Fiber lasers, Semiconductor lasers, Optical parametric oscillators, Lightwave communications, and Applications of lasers in science and industry.ABOUTTHE AUTHORSK. Thyagarajan obtained his MSc from Delhi University and PhD from IIT Delhi and after serving IIT Delhi as a faculty for more than four decades, is currently Professor and Head, Physics Department, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Bennett University, Greater Noida. He has held Visiting positions at various research laboratories and Universities in France, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan and Poland. He has published more than 170 research papers in international journals, has filed five patent applications and is the coauthor (with Professor A. K. Ghatak) of seven books. His lectures on Electromagnetism for Class XII students is available under IIT PAL (Professor Assisted Learning) and lectures on QuantumElectronics are available under NPTEL. In 1998 he was the co-recipient of the "Fiber Optic Person of the Year 1997" award by Lucent Technologies— Finolex and Voice and Data, India. In 2003 he was decorated with the title of "Officier dans l'ordre des Palmes Académiques" by the French Government, in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and in 2008 he waelected a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineers.Ajoy Ghatak was formerly Professor of Physics at IIT Delhi; he is currently Professor Meghnad Saha Fellow of NASI (The National Academy of Sciences, India). He received his MSc from Delhi University and PhD from Cornell University. After a short tenure as a Research Associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he joined IIT Delhi in 1966. Professor Ghatak has research interests in Fiber Optics & Quantum Mechanics. He has authored several books including his undergraduate text on OPTICS which has been translated to Chinese and Persian. His other books include Fiber Optics & Optical Electronics (both coauthored with ProfK. Thyagarajan), Mathematical Physics (coauthored with Prof I C Goyal & Prof S J Chua) and a popular book on Albert Einstein: The Story of a Genius. He is recipient of the 2008 SPIE Educator award in recognition of"his unparalleled global contributions to the field of fiber optics research, and his tireless dedication to optics education worldwide..."; the 2003 Esther Hoffman Beller award (instituted by The Optical Society of America) in recognition of his"outstanding contributions to optics education …."; International Commission for Optics 1998 Galileo Galilei award and alsothe CSIR 1979 S.S. Bhatnagar award for "outstanding contributions in physical sciences". The photograph above is from his video lecture recorded by IIT Delhi in February 2017 for the IIT-PAL video lectures for Class XI and Class XII.