Laser Applications in Biology and Biotechnology

Abstract

The laser is, due to the special nature and quality of laser light, a vital tool in nearly every aspect of everyday life including communications, entertainment, manufacturing and medicine. In this chapter, the authors survey the very important applications of lasers in biology and biotechnology. Ultrashort pulsed lasers, from free-running lasers to Q-switched lasers and mode-locked lasers, have revolutionized entire fields of physics and chemistry and extended the horizons of what is accessible to study in biology. Scattering is the redirection of light caused by the interaction of light with matter. The scattered electromagnetic radiation may have the same wavelength as the incident radiation or a different wavelength and it may have a different polarization. The lasers commonly used to probe biological samples are medium-intensity monochromatic light sources. Photosynthetic systems, having evolved to harvest and convert (sun)light energy effectively, contain a large array of pigments and pigment–protein complexes, with strong absorption-emission characteristics.