My thesis work was on laser induced plasma and studying the turbulence dealing with that laser induced plasma. We had a Nd-Yag nanosecond laser that came out at about 150 mJ at 10 Hz. We took that laser light and focused it into a chamber with a target gas. Our targets of choice were normally noble gases because they're atomic gases and should be easier to analyze than molecular gases like nitrogen and oxygen.
After graduation, I went on a NRC Postdoctoral Research Associateship to work at the Army Research Laboratory. There, we used matrix assisted laser desorption resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) to identify energetic materials with nitro groups. We mixed our target with laser dye that would absorb one wavelength. The mixture would desorb from the surface and we used a second laser to do the REMPI experiment on the target molecule.
For the past few years, I have been working with a 40 femtosecond, 3 mJ source that operates at a kilohertz rep rate. With this laser, my colleagues are attemping to use the unique characteristics of that source to identify targets of interest. Currently, we're working on a single prism pulse compressor to compress the white light that we create with the sapphire plate.
Many thanks to all the people that work in the lab with me.