Irregulars: Solid-state lasers

[Ronn!Blankenship]

One of my students asked a question in the middle of class last night that 
I had no answer for:  in the standard red diode laser pointer that you can 
now buy for chump change just about anywhere, what is the element or 
compound which produces the light?  E.g., in a ruby laser, it is the 
chromium atoms, and in a He-Ne gas laser the helium is used to pump the 
neon into the state where it will lase, so what is it in the el-cheapo 
diode laser, like the one I was using at the time to point to the figure 
being projected on the wall?  Hydroxyl masers in protostars, now that's a 
subject I can at least make some intelligent comments about . . .



-- Ronn!  :)


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