The production of laser light requires the formation of a resonant cavity where stimulated emission of radiation occurs. The light produced in this way is intense, coherent and monochromatic. The first part of this book describes the basic operation of different types of lasers and some of their common applications. These applications include CD/DVD players, laser printers and fibre optic communication devices. While these devices depend largely on the monochromaticity and coherence of the light that lasers produce, other well-known applications, such as laser machining, photolithography and laser fusion depend on the intensity of laser light.

The second part of the book describes an interesting and unconventional application of lasers: the cooling and confinement of a dilute gas at very low temperature. Ultracold atoms have a number of possible applications, as described in the present book, that include study of Bose-Einstein condensates. Bose-Einstein condensates were first observed experimentally in 1995 at the University of Colorado, and shortly thereafter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The book reviews some traditional Bose-Einstein condensate experiments, as well as some more unusual approaches to this topic including zero-gravity experiments and experiments on quasiparticle condensates. Other applications of ultracold atoms include highly accurate atomic clocks, and their use as a time standard and for the constancy of fundamental constants is discussed. This research and reference text is aimed at science and engineering professionals as well as upper level undergraduate and graduate physics students.