SE338

Fundamental Properties of light: Maxwell's equations in vacuum, transverse electromagnetic wave, flow of electromagnetic energy. Maxwell's equations in dielectric medium, absorption and dispersion of light. Temporal and spatial coherence.
Absorption and emission of light: Cavity radiation, Planck's law, spontaneous and stimulated emission coefficients. Homogenous and inhomogeneous broadening of spectral lines.
Fundamentals of Lasers: Population inversion, gain and condition of laser oscillation. Laser cavities and cavity modes. Generation of short pulses: Q-switching and mode locking. Specific Laser Systems: He-Ne laser, Ar+-ion laser and Nd:YAG laser. Tunable dye lasers and Optical Parametric Oscillators.
Laser in chemistry: Laser-induced fluorescence and multi-photon ionization process of molecules. Probing the dynamics of chemical processes in liquid and molecular beam. Spectroscopy of single molecules. Non-linear optical process in molecules and material medium.
Lasers in biology: Application of ultra-fast spectroscopy of probe protein dynamics, energy and electron transfer processes in natural photo-biological process. Optical trapping and manipulation of biological macromolecules and organelles. Identification and manipulation of single molecules in confocal microscopy. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and applications to diagnostics and biotechnology.