Laser Physics

In Laser Physics the interaction of radiation and matter, and the principles of laser operation are treated at a level suitable for fourth-year undergraduate courses or introductory graduate courses in physics, chemistry or engineering. The factors which determine efficiency, wavelength coverage, output power, and beam quality of the different classes of laser are treated both in terms of fundamental theory and practical construction aspects. Details of established types of solid-state, semiconductor, and gas lasers are examined together with the techniques that enable their output to be converted widely across the spectrum. The latest advances in high power fibre lasers, femtosecond lasers, and X-ray lasers are explained. The text is liberally illustrated with more than 300 diagrams. An extensive bibliography is provided, together with numerical problems in each chapter. Solutions are available via the web.

Simon Hooker's doctoral and early post-doctoral work in Oxford involved a study of novel line- and broadly-tunable vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) lasers optically-pumped by a molecular fluorine laser. In 1994 he moved to Stanford University to work with Prof. Steve Harris. He returned to the UK in 1996 to take up a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and to start a new research group in the Clarendon Laboratory. He joined the faculty of Oxford's Department of Physics in 2005; he was made Reader in 2006, and Professor in 2008.

Colin Webb completed his D.Phil. at Oxford in 1964, the first research degree specifically on the topic of laser physics undertaken anywhere outside the USA. He was then recruited as a member of technical staff of Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA. He returned to Oxford University in 1968 to head the Laser group at the Clarendon Laboratory. In the 1970s he became a University Lecturer and Fellow of Jesus College. Until his retirement in 2002, Colin Webb was the ad hominem Professor of Laser Physics at the University of Oxford, and from 1995-1999 he was Head of Atomic and Laser Physics. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America serving as Director-at-Large from 1991-1994. In 1991 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, receiving its Clifford Paterson Medal and Prize in 1998. In January 2000 he was awarded an MBE for services to the UK Laser Industry.