Publisher's Synopsis
This work conveys the proceedings of a workshop on laser ablation, which was held in 1991 at Oak Ridge in Tennessee. Laser ablation is the finely-tuned removal of thin layers from small areas of a material in order to control its surface structure and/or composition. The variety of applications of the technique are explored (for example, corneal reshaping, micro-machining electronic devices and detection of minute contaminants on catalysts).