Compact Blue-Green Lasers , William P. Risk, Timothy R. Gosnell, and Arto V. Nurmikko, Cambridge U. Press, New York, 2003. $130.00, $60.00 paper (540 pp.). ISBN 0-521-62318-9, ISBN 0-521-52103-3 paper
It has been interesting, in fact downright amusing, to witness how in a mere span of four decades the laser has turned from a technology “in search of a problem” into one that many other technologies cannot do without. In that respect, the laser has truly become a gift to humanity that keeps on giving. Equally remarkable is the almost bewildering number of ways in which lasers (or coherent light sources, to the purists) can be made. The accounts in Compact Blue-Green Lasers prove once more the time-honored aphorism that “if you hit it hard enough, it will lase.”
The designation blue-green in the context of the book really extends to the violet and beyond. These...