Anyone who completes this three-day course will have a good understanding of what a laser is, and what it can - and cannot - do.  He or she will understand what types of lasers to use for different purposes, and how a laser can be modified to improve its performance in a given application.

Throughout the course, material is presented in an intuitive, non-mathematical manner.  Any occasional use of mathematics to clarify a point is limited to first-year algebra. 

Day 1

1. The nature of light: Photons and electro-magnetic waves
   
2. Refractive index, Dispersion, Polarization, Birefringence
   
3. Optical interference: Young's experiment, Fabry-Perots and Mach-Zehnders
   
4. Laser light: The characteristics of coherent radiation
   
5. Quantum mechanics: Energy levels and transitions
   

Day 2

6. Population inversions and L.A.S.E.R.
   
7. Laser resonators: Gain and loss, intracavity dynamics
   
8. Transverse and longitudinal resonator modes; Gaussian beams
   
9. Reducing laser bandwidth; homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening, techniques of limiting bandwidth
   

Day 3

10. Q-switching: power and energy, types of Q-switches
    
11. Cavity dumping and modelocking: Ultrashort pulses
    
12. Nonlinear optics: second-harmonic generation, phase matching
    
13. Survey of lasers:
      Solidstate lasers, semiconductor lasers, fiber lasers, and gas lasers