The physics of energy transfer between the laser and the plasma in laser wakefield accelerators is studied. We find that wake excitation by arbitrary laser shapes can be parameterized using the total pulse energy and pulse depletion length. A technique for determining laser profiles that produce the required plasma excitation is developed. We show that by properly shaping the longitudinal profi...

The new optical design allows single- or multi-wavelength excitation of laser-stimulated emission (LSE), provides optimized LSE optical collection for spectral and temporal analyses, and incorporates swappable modules for flow-through and small-volume sample measurements. The basic instrument configuration uses 510 nm laser excitation for assessments of chlorophyll-a, phycobiliprotein pigments,...

The use of a pulsed fibre laser as an excitation source for photoacoustic tomography has been investigated. Fibre lasers have the advantage of being compact, robust and efficient compared to traditional excitation sources used for photoacoustic tomography (e.g. Q-switched Nd:YAG pumped OPO or dye systems). Their high pulse repetition frequencies and adjustable pulse duration, shape and duty cyc...

A dual-beam transient thermal-lens technique was employed for the determination of absolute fluorescence quantum-yield measurements of Rhodamine B laser dye in different solvents. We investigated the effect of excitation on the absolute fluorescence quantum yield of Rhodamine B. 514 nm radiation from an argon ion laser was used as a cw excitation source and 532 nm pulses from a Q-switched Nd:YA...

A laser-induced plasma generated with a pulsed Nd:YAG laser under evacuated conditions has complicated structures both temporally and spatially. The time-resolved spectra of copper in three different wavelength regions were observed in detail for elucidating the excitation mechanisms of many atomic/ionic copper emission lines. The emission intensities of copper emission lines, measured in a tim...

A 22× reduction in laser pump threshold and a 23× enhancement in energy conversion have been demonstrated on a second order distributed feedback (DFB) laser using a resonant optical pumping (ROP) technique. The ROP scheme couples the excitation light into a distinct resonant mode of the laser cavity through the illuminating at a specific resonant incident angle. Coupling excitation light into t...

Spectra of spin-forbidden and spin-allowed transitions in the mixed b (3)Pi(u) approximately A (1)Sigma(u)(+) state of Na(2) are measured separately by two-photon excitation using a single tunable dye laser. The two-photon excitation produces Na(*)(3p) by photodissociation, which is easily and sensitively detected by atomic fluorescence. At low laser power, only the A (1)Sigma(u)(+) state is ex...

We investigated the effect of the excitation wavelength on the density evolution of laser-produced tin plasmas, both experimentally and numerically. For producing plasmas, Sn targets were excited with either 10.6 lm CO2 laser or 1.06 lm Nd:yttrium aluminum garnet laser; both are considered to be potential excitation lasers for extreme ultraviolet lithography laser-produced plasma light sources....

It is often anticipated that two-photon excitation (TPE) laser scanning microscopy should improve cell survival and tissue penetration relative to conventional one-photon excitation (OPE) confocal scanning laser microscopy (CLSM). However few studies have directly compared live cell imaging using one- vs two-photon laser scanning microscopy. We have used calcein-loaded in situ chondrocytes with...

The use of two-color two-photon (2c2p) excitation easily extends the wavelength range of Ti:sapphire lasers to the UV, widening the scope of its applications especially in biological sciences. We report observation of 2c2p excitation fluorescence of p-terphenyl (PTP), 2-methyl-5-t-butyl-p-quaterphenyl (DMQ) and tryptophan upon excitation with 400 and 800 nm wavelengths using the second harmonic...