Adolf Friedrich Fercher, an outstanding pioneer of biomedical optics, passed away earlier this year. He was a brilliant and visionary researcher who pioneered various fields of biomedical optics, such as laser speckle flowgraphy, tissue interferometry, and optical coherence tomography (OCT). On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of OCT, this paper reviews and commemorates Fercher's pioneering...

We present results on a Raman laser-system that resonantly drives a closed two-photon transition between two levels in different hyperfine ground states of (87)Rb. The coupler is based on a novel optical design for producing two phase-coherent optical beams to drive a Raman transition. Operated as an outcoupler, it produces an atom laser in a single internal atomic state, with the lower diverge...

Ultra-intense laser-matter interaction experiments (>10(18) W/cm(2)) with dense targets are highly sensitive to the effect of laser "noise" (in the form of pre-pulses) preceding the main ultra-intense pulse. These system-dependent pre-pulses in the nanosecond and/or picosecond regimes are often intense enough to modify the target significantly by ionizing and forming a plasma layer in front of ...

Suitable instrumentation for laser-accelerated proton (ion) beams is critical for development of integrated, laser-driven ion accelerator systems. Instrumentation aimed at beam diagnostics and control must be applied to the driving laser pulse, the laser-plasma that forms at the target and the emergent proton (ion) bunch in a correlated way to develop these novel accelerators. This report is a ...