By the end of the 1970s, crystalline lasers were widely used in science, engineering, medicine, and technology. The types of lasers used have continued to grow in number to include newly discovered crystalline hosts, previously known compounds generating at other spectral wavelengths, and broadband tunable stimulated emission. This has led to the creation of an extremely promising new generation of crystalline lasers that are both highly efficient and more reliable. The major part of this book is devoted to describing multilevel operating laser schemes for stimulated emission excitation in...

It was a greatest pleasure for me to learn that Springer-Verlag wished to produce a second edition of my book. In this connection, Dr. H. Lotsch asked me to send hirn a list of misprints, mistakes, and inaccuracies that had been noticed in the first edition and to make corresponding corrections without disturbing the layout or the typo- graphy too much. I accepted this opportunity with alacrity and, moreover, found some free places in the text where I was able to insert some concise, up-to-date information about new lasing compounds and stimulated emission channels. It was also possible to...