Recent progress in novel techniques for generating high‐power coherent radiation promises to make available sources with a variety of new and exciting applications. Interestingly, the new techniques have more in common with those used in the earliest sources of coherent radiation—the various microwave generators—than with those used in the more recent optical lasers. Development of new sources based on these techniques is proceeding rapidly at research centers around the world, because the new sources have a great potential for extending the currently available range of wavelengths and levels of power, while maintaining high operating efficiencies. The areas of application that stand to benefit include spectroscopy, advanced accelerators, short‐wavelength radar, and plasma heating in fusion reactors.
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March 1984
March 01 1984
New sources of high‐power coherent radiation
Free‐electron lasers and cyclotron‐resonance masers show considerable promise for producing previously unattainable levels of power at wavelengths ranging from millimeters to the ultraviolet.
Physics Today 37 (3), 44–51 (1984);