The amazing cadmium atom

Summarize the unique properties of the Cd atom that have lead to many new types of laser excitation schemes and processes that began 35 years ago. These include the CW blue and ultraviolet laser transitions in Cd/sup +/, the generation of 125-ps pulses (the shortest mode-locked pulses at that time), the process of Penning ionization as a laser excitation mechanism, recombination lasers produced by both laser-produced plasmas and a new segmented arc recombination laser (SPER laser) and the first soft-X-ray pumped photoionization laser, which are all described briefly.