A Short Introduction to Laser Physics

Abstract

To study the influence of light on the dynamics of an atom or a molecule experimentally, laser light sources are used most frequently. This is due to the fact that lasers have well-defined properties. The theory of the laser dates back to the 1950s and 1960s of the twentieth century and by now, 50 years later is textbook material. In this introductory chapter, we start by recapitulating some basic notions of laser theory, which will be needed to understand later chapters. More recently, experimentalists have been focusing on pulsed mode operation of lasers with pulse lengths of the order of femtoseconds, allowing for time-resolved measurements. At the end of this chapter, we therefore put together some aspects of pulsed lasers that are important for their application to atomic and molecular systems.