Laser Cooling Fundamental Properties and Applications

In the recent decades, laser cooling or optical refrigeration?a physical process by which a system loses its thermal energy as a result of interaction with laser light?has garnered a great deal of scientific interest due to the importance of its applications. Optical solid-state coolers are one such application. They are free from liquids as well as moving parts that generate vibrations and introduce noise to sensors and other devices. They are based on reliable laser diode pump systems. Laser cooling can also be used to mitigate heat generation in high-power lasers.

This book compiles and details cutting-edge research in laser cooling done by various scientific teams all over the world that are currently revolutionizing optical refrigerating technology. It includes recent results on laser cooling by redistribution of radiation in dense gas mixtures, three conceptually different approaches to laser cooling of solids such as cooling with anti-Stokes fluorescence, Brillouin cooling, and Raman cooling. It also discusses crystal growth and glass production for laser cooling applications. This book will appeal to anyone involved in laser physics, solid-state physics, low-temperature physics or cryogenics, materials research, development of temperature sensors, or infrared detectors.

Laser Cooling of Dense Gases by Collisional Redistribution of Radiation. Laser Cooling in Rare Earth Doped Glasses and Crystals. Progress toward Laser Cooling of Thulium-Doped Fibers. Laser Cooling of Solids around 2.07 Microns: A Theoretical Investigation. Optically Cooled Lasers. Methods for Laser Cooling of Solids. Deep Laser Cooling of Rare-Earth Doped Crystals by Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage. Bulk Cooling Efficiency Measurements of Yb Doped Fluoride Single Crystals and Energy-Transfer Assisted Anti-Stokes Cooling in Co-doped Fluorides. Interferometric Measurement of Laser Induced Temperature Changes. Fluoride Glasses and Fibers. Crystal Growth of Fluoride Single Crystals for Optical Refrigeration. Microscopic Theory of Optical Refrigeration of Semiconductors. Coulomb-Assisted Laser Cooling of Piezoelectric Semiconductors.

Galina Nemova is a research fellow at École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, since 2004. She received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia, in 1987 and 1990, respectively. She served as a staff scientific researcher at the Koteľnikov Institute of Radio-engineering and Electronics of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia (1990–2000). She was engaged as a research fellow at Laval University, Quebec, Canada (2000–2002) and was an optical engineer/researcher at Bragg Photonics Inc., Montreal, Canada (2002–2004). Dr. Nemova is a senior member of the Optical Society of America. She has edited one book and authored more than 100 papers. Her research interests cover a broad range of topics such as laser cooling of solids, fiber lasers and amplifiers, Raman lasers, nonlinear optics, fiber sensors, planar optical waveguides, fiber Bragg gratings, long period gratings, and surface polaritons.