The second edition of 'Optical-Thermal Response of Laser-Irradiated Tissue' maintains the standard of excellence established in the first edition, while adjusting the content to reflect changes in tissue optics and medical applications since 1995.

This volume is a collection of papers which were presented at the 2001 International Conference on Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP 2001) held at Ise Shima, Mie, on November 14-16, 2001.

Surfaces are the bounding faces of solids. The interaction of component surface with the working environment results in wear and corrosion. Estimated loss due to wear and corrosion in the USA is around $500 billion. Engineered surfaces are the key to the reduction of losses due to wear and corrosion.

This book covers a wide range of topics, from new systems (diode pumping, short pulse generation) and components (a new semiorganic nonlinear crystal) to applications in material processing (coating, welding, polishing, drilling, processing of metallic thin films), medicine (treatment, drug administration) and other various fields (semiconductor nanotechnology, plasma spectroscopy, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy).

This book includes several contributions aiming a deeper understanding of the basic processes in the operation of CO2 lasers (lasing on non-traditional bands, frequency stabilization, photoacoustic spectroscopy) and achievement of new systems (CO2 lasers generating ultrashort pulses or high average power, lasers based on diffusion cooled V-fold geometry, transmission of IR radiation through hollow core microstructured fibers).