Lasers and Holographic Data Processing

📒 This book deals with some of the recent developments in the field of lasers and holography. It reviews the theoretical and experimental work conducted by the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and the P.N.Lebedev Physics Institute aimed at developing high-performance lasers and new techniques in holographic data processing. The first chapter contains a look at a holographic diagnostic system developed by the authors, as well as an overview of methods of conducting fast medical diagnostics. Chapter two discusses holographic data processing in simple optical arrangements which rely solely on the transformation of the spatial structure of light. The coherent properties of semiconductor injection lasers are discussed in chapter three, and chapter four considers efforts to improve the quality of laser emission by means of wavefront reversion in the conditions of stimulated scattering. The fifth and final chapter takes a look at a laser-converter which integrates a few pump beams into a single beam of higher energy and lower divergence light, suitable for nuclear fusion research.