Generating coherent light in the ultraviolet (UV) is important for a broad range of applications including materials processing, medical surgery, diagnostics, scientific experiments, and many others. A practical way to generate UV light is by converting more easily obtained infrared or visible laser beams into the UV light using nonlinear optics--harmonic generation processes in crystals. This works well for producing light in nearly all of the UV A range (315 nm – 400 nm), the longest of the UV wavelengths. There are several crystals that can do this job.
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