Laser Light Dynamics, Volume II

Preface. List of symbols. 1. Introduction. 2. Basic properties and types of lasers. 3. Laser resonators. 4. The intensity of laser light. Rate equations. 5. The basic equations of the semiclassical laser theory. 6. Applications of semiclassical theory. 7. Ultrashort pulses. 8. Instability hierachies of laser light. Chaos, and routes to chaos. 9. Optical bistability. 10. Quantum theory of the laser I. A first approach via quantum mechanical Langevin equations. Coherence, noise and photon-statistics. 11. Quantum theory of the laser II. A second approach via the density matrix equation and quantum classical correspondence. 12 A theoretical treatment of the two-photon laser. 13. The laser - trailblazer of synergetics. References. Subject index.

This volume deals with laser physics emphasizing laser theory from a physical point of view. It takes into account most recent developments focussing on the dynamics. Proceeding from simple to more difficult questions, the book treats, among other topics: typical experimental laser systems, intensities of laser light in single and multimode lasers, mode competition, hole-burning, Q-switched lasers, relaxation-oscillations, frequency shifts, population pulsations, mode-locking, ultrashort pulses, self-pulsing, laser light chaos, instability hierarchies, laser gyro, optical bistability, optical transistor, two-photon laser, laser line width, Hanbury-Brown-Twiss experiment, intensity correlations, photon statistics, quantum classical correspondence, laser phase-transition analogy, the laser as a synergetic system.