High-Power Picosecond Pulses from UV to IR

Abstract

Two-step excitation of atoms and molecules has become of ever-increasing importance during the last few years, e. g. two-step excitation schemes for laser isotope separation or the interesting experiments with Rydberg states reached by two-step excitation. In large molecules as e. g. dyes or molecules of biological interest ps pulses must be used for two-step spectroscopy. But then a great wealth of new information can be obtained as shown by the pioneering experiments of Kaiser and coworkers [1]. For these experiments one needs tunable IR and UV-visible pulses occurring simultaneously.