Masers and Lasers: An Historical Approach

Foreword to the First Edition Foreword to the Second Edition Preface Author Introduction Principle of Operation The Devices Masers Lasers Applications Development Note Stimulated Emission: Could the Laser have been Built More than 80 Years Ago? Stimulated Emission Role of Stimulated Emission in the Theory of Light Dispersion Experimental Proofs of Negative Dispersion More on Negative Absorption Notes Intermezzo: Magnetic Resonance and Optical Pumping Introduction The Resonance Method with Molecular Beams Magnetic Relaxation Phenomena in Solids Magnetic Resonance: Bloch, Purcell, and Zavoisky Bloch Equations Experimental Proof of Population Inversion The Concept of Negative Temperature The Overhauser Effect Spin Echo Medical Application of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Electronic Paramagnetic Resonance Atomic Clocks Optical Pumping Notes The Maser Introduction Weber's Maser Townes and the First Ammonia Maser Basov and Prokhorov and the Soviet Approach to the Maser The Three-Level Solid-State Maser Optically Pumped Masers The Hydrogen Maser The Ancestor of the Free-Electron Laser The Electron Cyclotron Maser The Rydberg or Single-Photon Maser (Micromaser) Two-Photon Maser Maser Action in Nature Notes The Laser Introduction The Townes and Schawlow Proposal Townes' and Schawlow's Idea The Gordon Gould Story The Dicke Coherence-Brightened Laser Soviet Research Notes The First Lasers Introduction The Ruby Laser The Four-Level Laser The Neodymium Laser The Gas Laser The Cesium Laser Laser Cavities Further Progress in Gaseous Lasers Neutral Atom Lasers Ion Gas Lasers Molecular Lasers Excimer Lasers The Liquid Laser: Dye and Chelate Lasers The Chemical Laser The Semiconductor Laser Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser Diodes (VCSELs) Quantum Cascade Lasers The Free-Electron Laser Does the Laser Exist in Nature? Notes Laser Properties and Progresses in Novel Lasers Introduction Q-Switching Modes in the He-Ne Laser Mode Locking Lamb's Theory Mode Selection and Frequency and Amplitude Stabilization Tunable Solid-State Lasers Distributed Feedback Lasers Optical Amplifiers Diode Pumped Solid-State Lasers Notes Nonlinear Optics Introduction The Prehistory of Nonlinear Optics The First Experiments Nonlinear Optics Physical Origin of Optical Nonlinearities Further Experiments in Nonlinear Optics Optical Rectification Optical Mixing Parametric Oscillation and Amplification Third-Order Effects Down-Conversion and Entanglement Nonlinearities in Optical Fibers High Harmonics Generation Multiphoton Ionization Ultrashort Laser Pulses Supercontinuum Generation Notes More Exotic Lasers Introduction Lasing Without Inversion Random Lasers Nanolasers Plasmon Lasers Spaser One- and Two-Photon Laser High-Power Lasers High-Power Fiber Lasers X- and Gamma-Ray Laser Notes The Statistical Properties of Light Introduction Introduction of the Concept of the Photon Fluctuations of Radiant Energy Bose and the Statistics of Radiation A Few More Remarks on Bose-Einstein Condensation Further Developments in the Theory of Fluctuations of Radiation Fields The Hanbury Brown and Twiss Experiment The Quantum Theory of Coherence The Discussion of the Need for Quantum Optics Experimental Studies of the Statistical Properties of Light Polarized Thermal Light Laser Light Nonclassical States of Light and Single-Photon Sources Notes Subject Index Author Index