During the decade there were many developments in laser research and numerous applications of the laser were made in fields of science and engineering. Many theoretical and experimental ad- vances were made in the Soviet Union; often they paralleled those taking place in the United States and elsewhere but started from different points, proceeded along different paths, and yielded dif- ferent insights into the physical processes taking place in the la- ser. The present book offers a unified theory of lasers by which the operating characteristics of the laser are described and re- lated to the...