Lasers in Science and Technology

Summary

Lasers have been used in pursuit of science and technology. Some of the important areas include their use in optical metrology mainly exploiting laser interferometry for making precise engineering measurements such as length, velocity, vibration, stress and strain. This chapter discusses topics such as laser velocimetry, laser vibrometry and electron speckle pattern interferometry. The chapter talks about interferometric and imaging techniques such as laser doppler velocimetry (LDV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV). Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) has been successfully used for the study of material properties, fatigue testing, fracture mechanics, vibrational mode analysis and non‐destructive testing of a variety of components in the automotive, aerospace and electronics industries. Satellite laser ranging (SLR) measurements are used to provide an independent check on the accuracy of orbital information derived from radiometric tracking measurements.