water pollutuon
Many scientific, military, medical and commercial laser applications have been developed since the invention of the laser in the 1958. The coherency, high monochromaticity, and ability to reach extremely high powers are all properties which allow for these specialized applications.
Scientific
In science, lasers are used in many ways, including:
A wide variety of interferometric techniques
Raman spectroscopy
Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy
Atmospheric remote sensing
Investigating nonlinear optics phenomena
Holographic techniques employing lasers also contribute to a number of measurement techniques.
Laser based LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) technology has application in geology, seismology, remote sensing and atmospheric physics.
Lasers have been used aboard spacecraft such as in the Cassini-Huygens mission.
In astronomy, lasers have been used to create artificial laser guide stars, used as reference objects for adaptive optics telescopes.
Lasers may also be indirectly used in spectroscopy as a micro-sampling system, a technique termed Laser ablation (LA), which is typically applied to ICP-MS apparatus resulting in the powerful LA-ICP-MS.
The principles of laser spectroscopy are discussed by Demtröder[1] and the use of tunable lasers in spectroscopy are described in Tunable Laser Applications.
Spectroscopy
Most types of laser are an inherently pure source of light; they emit near-monochromatic light with a very well defined range of wavelengths. By careful design of the laser components, the purity of the laser light (measured as the "linewidth") can be improved more than the purity of any other light source. This makes the laser a very useful source for spectroscopy. The high intensity of light that can be achieved in a small, well collimated beam can also be used to induce a nonlinear optical effect in a sample, which makes techniques such as Raman spectroscopy possible. Other spectroscopic techniques based on lasers can be used to make
Scientific
In science, lasers are used in many ways, including:
A wide variety of interferometric techniques
Raman spectroscopy
Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy
Atmospheric remote sensing
Investigating nonlinear optics phenomena
Holographic techniques employing lasers also contribute to a number of measurement techniques.
Laser based LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) technology has application in geology, seismology, remote sensing and atmospheric physics.
Lasers have been used aboard spacecraft such as in the Cassini-Huygens mission.
In astronomy, lasers have been used to create artificial laser guide stars, used as reference objects for adaptive optics telescopes.
Lasers may also be indirectly used in spectroscopy as a micro-sampling system, a technique termed Laser ablation (LA), which is typically applied to ICP-MS apparatus resulting in the powerful LA-ICP-MS.
The principles of laser spectroscopy are discussed by Demtröder[1] and the use of tunable lasers in spectroscopy are described in Tunable Laser Applications.
Spectroscopy
Most types of laser are an inherently pure source of light; they emit near-monochromatic light with a very well defined range of wavelengths. By careful design of the laser components, the purity of the laser light (measured as the "linewidth") can be improved more than the purity of any other light source. This makes the laser a very useful source for spectroscopy. The high intensity of light that can be achieved in a small, well collimated beam can also be used to induce a nonlinear optical effect in a sample, which makes techniques such as Raman spectroscopy possible. Other spectroscopic techniques based on lasers can be used to make