Most of the research on laser glasses in China is carried out at Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, and significant achievements have been made since 1962. A review of the current status of development of laser glass is presented, including chemical compositions and physical properties, manufacturing technology, measurement and inspection and some fundamental research.In the early years of 1960’s, laser output was obtained from Nd-doped silicate, borate, phosphate glasses. We made great effort to develop various Nd-doped silicate glasses for different laser devices and to improve their performances. In recent years development of phosphate and fluorophosphate glasses has been emphasized. Several Nd-doped glasses have been produced commercially. The spectroscopic, physical and laser properties of Nd-doped glasses are listed in the appendix of this paper.We paid more attention to develop a melting process for making laser glass and a protective atmospheric melting apparatus was built. Large silicate glass rods of up to 7 cm in diameter and 150 cm long and phosphate glass disc of up to 30 cm in diameter have been obtained.Various methods for measuring different kinds of physical properties of laser glasses have been also investigated and the corresponding apparatus installed. Emphasis is laid on the inspection of optical quality of large size glass products, and laser holographic interferometer for optical homogeniety measurement has been developed.This paper also reports some fundamental research results on laser glasses. As for laser glass spectroscopy, the spectral properties and structural state of rare earth ions in inorganic glasses were early investigated. The study of spectral and luminescent properties of Nd-doped glasses was emphasized. Further detailed studies on the influence of the glass bases on spectral properties of Nd ion and energy transfer process of Nd ions in glasses were made. We syst- ematically investigated the intense laser induced damage, thermal blooming and self-focusing in glass medium, various equipments for measuring nonlinear refractive index of glasses and a new calculation method with high accuracy were developed.

A general review is made on the past and future of the research progress of laser crystals in China. Some proposals are offered in order to open up a new prospect to the development of laser crystals.

The development of a BEB pumped Xc2Cl excimer laser described in this paper began with the study of the flourescence. Detailed experimental data are presented and reviewed. In particular, the influence of the optical resonator configuration upon the broad-band wavelength tuning is studied. The spectral and temporal fluorescence and laser characteristics of various rare gas halide mixtures are evaluated.

Owing to the simplicity of changing dye concentration in the waveguide dye laser, the depth of active region can be adjusted conveniently in the waveguide tube. In addition, the thermal effect of the pumping light produces gradual distribution of refractive indexes in the dye solution, thus forming the cylindrical surface active region with different thickness and the self-guided effect of the solution. This provides an advantage and visual experimental foundation for the production and the transmission of skew rays.

More experimental data of polarization are reported on the intracavity He-Ne laser. The polarization phenomena relates to the cavity anisotrropy closely. The phenomena are explained by Lamb theory.

Briefly presented are the main physical properties of photoconductive electrooptic Bi12BiO20(BSO) crystals and their applications to real-time holography, speckle interferometry, optical information processing in recent years. Some of our new experimental results obtained are reported.

A power stabilization servo-loop for optically pumped FIK lasers is described. Its power drift is less than 2-3% of the full value in half an hour. The analyses of the loop and a jumping phenomenon of the loop are discussed.

We put a sample on the top of photoacoustic cell as a window of it and used a goldcoating high reflectianee mirror by which light beam was reflected back to the sample, the photoacoustic signal is enhanced as much as 1.5 times. By the above photoacoustic cell, we investigated the frequency property of the crystal Si and the experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical calculation.

According to the information theory, the ratio of signal and noise can be improved by increasing redundancy. This paper gives a new method of producing fly’s-eye holograms, which needs no real fly’s-eye lenz, and the labour of computing and plotting hologram can be spared too.

This paper reports the experimental results which indicate that the clearing-speed is inversely proportional to the pressure in He-Ne lasers.

This paper studies the characteristics of f errite -core Bogowski coil which can be used for the measuement of electrical properties of pulsed gas discharge.

This paper introduces a method to correct the wavefront distortion using the high diffraction efficiency hologram. The experimental results are given,and this compensating effect is compared with the method of degenerate four-wave mixing.

In this paper we introduce a simple method for detemining the spectral parameters of laser materials, with which we have determined and compared spectral parameters of Nd-doped silicate glasses.

A new method for selecting longitudinal modes in the He-Ne laser is described. Single longitudinal oscillation is obtained by increasing of active medium pressure and exertion of the axial magnetic field of certain strength.

The paper presents some opinions which are differ from "An improved type of W. Rogowski electrodes".

We have got an improved decayingfactor relationship between the atomic final state and the laser light by analyzing the two-photon transition functions for the decaying optical pulse series excitation.