Lasers in Chemistry

1 Principles of Laser Operation.- 1.1 The Nature of Stimulated Emission.- 1.2 Resonators and Pumping Processes.- 1.3 Coherent Radiation, Standing Waves and Modes.- 1.4 The Kinetics of Laser Emission.- 1.4.1 Rate Equations.- 1.4.2 Threshold Conditions.- 1.4.3 Pulsed Versus Continuous Emission.- 1.5 Transitions, Lifetimes and Linewidths.- 1.5.1 Three-level Laser.- 1.5.2 Four-level Laser.- 1.5.3 Emission Linewidths.- 1.6 Properties of Laser Light, and Their Applications.- 1.6.1 Beamwidth.- 1.6.2 Intensity.- 1.6.3 Coherence.- 1.6.4 Monochromaticity.- 1. 7 Questions.- 2 Laser Sources.- 2.1 Solid-state Transition Metal Ion Lasers.- 2.1.1 Ruby Laser.- 2.1.2 Neodymium Lasers.- 2.2 Semiconductor Lasers.- 2.3 Atomic and Ionic Gas Lasers.- 2.3.1 Helium-neon Laser.- 2.3.2 Argon Laser.- 2.3.3 Copper Vapour Laser.- 2.4 Molecular Gas Lasers.- 2.4.1 Carbon Dioxide Laser.- 2.4.2 Nitrogen Laser.- 2.4.3 Chemical Lasers.- 2.4.4 Iodine Laser.- 2.4.5 Exciplex Lasers.- 2.5 Dye Lasers.- 2.6 Free-electron Laser.- 2.7 Questions.- 3 Laser Instrumentation in Chemistry.- 3.1 Polarising Optics.- 3.2 Frequency Conversion.- 3.2.1 Dye Laser Conversion.- 3.2.2 Nonlinear Optics.- 3.2.3 Raman Shifting.- 3.3 Pulsing Techniques.- 3.3.1 Cavity Dumping.- 3.3.2 Q-Switching.- 3.3.3 Mode-locking.- 3.4 Detectors.- 3.5 Pulse Detection Systems.- 3.5.1 Lock-in Amplifiers.- 3.5.2 Boxcar Integrators.- 3.5.3 Single-pulse Systems.- 3.6 Light Scattering Instrumentation.- 3.6.1 Nephelometry.- 3.6.2 Photon Correlation Measurements.- 3.6.3 Brillouin Scattering.- 3.6.4 Doppler Velocimetry.- 3.6.5 Lidar.- 3.7 Polarimetry.- 3.8 Laser Detectors in Chromatography.- 3.9 Laser Microprobe Instrumentation.- 3.10 Laser Safety.- 3.11 Questions.- 4 Chemical Spectroscopy with Lasers.- 4.1 Absorption Spectroscopy.- 4.2 Specialised Absorption Techniques.- 4.2.1 Excitation Spectroscopy.- 4.2.2 Ionisation Spectroscopy.- 4.2.3 Thermal Lensing Spectroscopy.- 4.2.4 Photoacoustic Spectroscopy.- 4.2.5 Optogalvanic Spectroscopy.- 4.2.6 Laser Magnetic Resonance.- 4.2.7 Laser Stark Spectroscopy.- 4.2.8 Other High-resolution Methods.- 4.3 Fluorescence Spectroscopy.- 4.3.1 Laser-induced Atomic Fluorescence.- 4.3.2 Laser-induced Molecular Fluorescence.- 4.4 Raman Spectroscopy.- 4.5 Specialised Raman Techniques.- 4.5.1 Resonance Raman Spectroscopy.- 4.5.2 Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy.- 4.5.3 Inverse Raman Spectroscopy.- 4.5.4 CARS Spectroscopy.- 4.5.5 Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy.- 4.5.6 Raman Optical Activity.- 4.6 Multiphoton Spectroscopy.- 4.6.1 Single-beam Two-photon Absorption.- 4.6.2 Double-beam Two-photon Absorption.- 4.6.3 Multiphoton Absorption Spectroscopy.- 4.6.4 Hyper-Raman Spectroscopy.- 4.7 Laser Mass Spectrometry.- 4.8 References.- 4.9 Questions.- 5 Laser-Induced Chemistry.- 5.1 Principles of Laser-induced Chemistry.- 5.1.1 Implications of Laser Excitation.- 5.1.2 Laser-initiated Processes.- 5.2 Multiphoton Infra-red Excitation.- 5.2.1 Diatomic Molecules.- 5.2.2 Polyatomic Molecules.- 5.2.3 Reaction Rates and Yields.- 5.3 Laser Photochemical Processes.- 5.3.1 Unimolecular Laser-induced Reactions.- 5.3.2 Bimolecular Laser-enhanced Reactions.- 5.3.3 Laser-sensitised Reactions.- 5.3.4 Laser Surface Chemistry.- 5.3.5 Ultrafast Reactions.- 5.3.6 Laser Reaction Diagnostics.- 5.4 Isotope Separation.- 5.4.1 Photoionisation.- 5.4.2 Photodissociation.- 5.4.3 Photochemical Reaction.- 5.4.4 Photodeflection.- 5.5 Miscellaneous Applications.- 5.5.1 Purification of Materials.- 5.5.2 Production of Ceramic Powders.- 5.5.3 Photoradiation Therapy.- 5.6 References.- 5.7 Questions.- 6 Appendix 1: Listing of Output Wavelengths from Commercial Lasers.- 7 Appendix 2: Directory of Acronyms and Abbreviations.- 8 Appendix 3: Selected Bibliography.- 9 Appendix 4: Answers to Numerical Problems.- 10 Subject Index.