Lasers and Their Application to the Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensates

Description

The first part of this book overviews the physics of lasers and describes some of the more common types of lasers and their applications. Applications of lasers include CD/DVD players, laser printers and fiber optic communication devices. Part II of this book describes the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation. The experimental techniques used to create a Bose-Einstein condensate provide an interesting and unconventional application of lasers; that is, the cooling and confinement of a dilute gas at very low temperature. PRELIMS.pdf Preface Acknowledgements Author biography Richard A Dunlap CH001.pdf Chapter 1 The basic physics of lasers 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Optical spectra 1.3 Stimulated emission 1.4 Creating a population inversion 1.5 Laser modes and coherence 1.6 Problems References and suggestions for further reading CH002.pdf Chapter 2 Types of lasers I: conventional lasers 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Solid state lasers 2.3 Second harmonic generation 2.4 Gas lasers 2.5 Dye lasers References and suggestions for further reading CH003.pdf Chapter 3 Types of lasers II: semiconducting lasers 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Semiconductor physics 3.3 Semiconducting junctions 3.4 LEDs and semiconductor lasers 3.5 Problems References and suggestions for further reading CH004.pdf Chapter 4 Laser applications 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Communications 4.3 Optical data discs 4.4 Printers 4.4.1 Raster image processing 4.4.2 Charging 4.4.3 Exposing 4.4.4 Developing 4.4.5 Transferring 4.4.6 Fusing 4.4.7 Cleaning 4.5 Industrial applications 4.6 Inertial confinement fusion References and suggestions for further reading CH005.pdf Chapter 5 Fermions and bosons 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Fermions, bosons and the Pauli principle 5.3 Distinguishable and indistinguishable particles and quantum states 5.4 What is a boson and what is not a boson? 5.5 Bose–Einstein condensation 5.6 Problems References and suggestions for further reading CH006.pdf Chapter 6 Cooling techniques 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Cooling techniques: the dilution refrigerator 6.3 Cooling techniques—adiabatic demagnetization 6.4 Laser cooling 6.5 Sisyphus cooling 6.6 Magneto-optic traps 6.7 Forced evaporative cooling 6.8 Problems References and suggestions for further reading CH007.pdf Chapter 7 The Bose–Einstein condensate 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Creating and identifying a Bose–Einstein condensate 7.3 Why is it useful? 7.4 Problems References and suggestions for further reading