Abstract

For many analytical applications, a compact, inexpensive laser source is desired. Compactness is needed to move analytical techniques off the laboratory bench and into the real world, while low costs will place laser-based instrumentation within the reach of a larger community of users. Although room temperature diode lasers are small, cheap, and readily available today, they are limited to wavelengths between 0.6 microns and 1.8 microns. Intense efforts to develop new semiconductor lasers at wavelengths outside this range are underway, but these efforts are unlikely to pay off before the end of the century. In the meantime, light at wavelengths needed for analytical applications can be produced using the nonlinear frequency conversion of existing diode lasers.

© 1996 Optical Society of America