The Supercontinuum Laser Source: The Ultimate White Light

This book, now in its fourth edition, is a well-known classic on the ultrafast nonlinear and linear processes responsible for supercontinuum generation. The book begins with chapters reviewing the experimental and theoretical understanding of the field along with key applications developed since the discovery of the supercontinuum effect. The chapters that follow cover recent research activity on supercontinuum phenomena, novel applications, and advances achieved since the publication of the previous edition. The new chapters focus on: filamentation in gases, air, and condensed media; conical emission by four-wave mixing and X-waves; electronic self-phase mechanism; higher harmonics generation;  attosecond laser pulses; complex vector beam supercontinuum; higher order self-phase modulation and cross-phase modulation; nonlinear supercontinuum interference in uniaxial crystals; new nonlinear microscopes involving supercontinuum and ultrafast lasers with biomedical applications; and other current supercontinuum applications in communications.

The Supercontinuum Laser Source is a definitive work by one of the discoverers of the white light effect. It is indispensable reading for any researcher or student working in the field of ultrafast laser physics.

Chapter 6 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Robert R. Alfano, Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at The City College of the City University of New York, has contributed significantly to the field of ultrafast laser science, discovered the supercontinuum in 1970 and continues research to date, and is a pioneer in the application of light and development of new tunable Cr3+/Cr4+ lasers, advance of laser spectroscopic and optical imaging techniques for condensed matter, biomedical photonics, optical biopsy, and study of ultrafast optical pulse propagation and imaging in scattering media. He is a fellow of APS, OSA, IEEE, NY Academy of Science, and is an Alfred P. Sloan fellow. He received his PhD in physics from New York University and spent 8 years at GTE Labs (now Verizon) before joining CCNY. Prof. Alfano received the OSA Charles Hard Townes Award in 2008, the SPIE Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award in 2012, the APS Arthur L Schawlow Prize in Laser Science in 2013, OSA Michael S. Feld Award for Biophotonics in 2016, and SPIES Gold Medal in 2019.