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Field Guide to Spectroscopy

Author(s): David W. Ball
Published: 12 May 2006
Print ISBN13: 9780819463524
Print ISBN10: 0819463523
eISBN: 9780819478238
DOI: 10.1117/3.682726
Vol: FG08
Pages: 124
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Description

This Guide provides an overview on the essential types of lasers and their key properties, as well as an introduction into the most important physical and technological aspects of lasers. Apart from describing the basic principles (such as stimulated emission and the properties of optical resonators), this Guide discusses the numerous important properties of laser crystals, the impact of thermal effects on laser performance, methods of wavelength tuning and pulse generation, and laser noise. Practitioners will also gain valuable insight from remarks on laser safety and obtain new ideas about how to make the laser development process more efficient.

Keywords: spectroscopy, spectrometer, interferometer, diffraction grating, Beer's law, molecular, atomic, chemical sensing

Table of Contents

Excerpt

Of all the Field Guides published to date, this one may stand out due to its relatively broad topic: the field of spectroscopy. Indeed, entire field guides can be written on what is covered here in one or two pages (witness the two pages on polarization here versus an entire Field Guide devoted to that topic published previously). Whatever limitations this may impart on this volume, I accept them and expect that the reader will understand them, too.

This material is derived from several sources, including my own training in infrared and circular dichroism spectroscopy from Rice University and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; from courses I have taught in spectroscopy at Cleveland State University; and from personal research I conducted in the course of authoring “The Baseline” column in Spectroscopy magazine since 1994. Writing is a form of self-education, and I have been blessed with fast (though not always accurate) typing skills with which I can benefit by increased writing and, as a result, learning.

Thanks go to my colleague, John F. Turner II, for his review of the initial Table of Contents. I would also like to thank reviewers Brad Stone of San Diego State University and Vidi Saptari of MKS Instruments, Inc., for their thoughtful comments on the manuscript, and John E. Greivencamp of the University of Arizona, series editor, for leadership in the Field Guides series. Thanks are also due to Dr. Koji Masutani of Micro Science Inc. for corrections made while preparing the Japanese translation of this book.

This Field Guide is dedicated to my family: my wife, Gail, and my sons, Stuart and Casey.

David W. Ball

Department of Chemistry

Cleveland State University



©2006 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
DOI: 10.1117/3.682726

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