ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses details of flashlamp-pumped and laser-pumped solid host materials. It describes the dye laser which is one of the most versatile, tunable, and robust lasers available. The chapter also discusses the semiconductor laser briefly where the difference between a standard diode laser that emits light orthogonal to the electrical current path and a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser which lases along the same axis as the current flow. There are many types of lasers such as solid-state, gas, liquid, chemical, semiconductor, metal-vapor, and there are even exotic systems requiring nuclear detonations or antimatter annihilation. One of the most versatile lasers available is the flashlamp-pumped liquid dye laser. This type of laser converts electrical energy stored in capacitors to an optical flashlamp pulse, which is then used to pump the singlet transition of organic molecules in various dyes dissolved in a liquid solvent host.
