Laser ionization mass spectrometry is developed in this laboratory, which has been used for trace analysis of more than 745 organic compounds such as dioxins in soil, pesticides in food, carcinogenic compounds in PM2.5, explosives, and nerve agent metabolites in human urine. A two-dimensional display constructed against the retention time in gas chromatography and the mass/charge ratio in mass spectrometry provides us valuable information concerning the isotopomers and the impurities contained in the sample.

A unique nonlinear optical technology has been developed in this laboratory, referred to as “Rainbow Stars”. This technique based on four-wave Raman mixing can be used for the generation of ultrashort optical pulses in the region from the near-infrared to the vacuum-ultraviolet. Recently, we generated a few-femtosecond optical pulse in the near-infrared and ultraviolet regions. Our goal is to generate an ultimately-short optical pulse which covers all the spectral region extending from the near-infrared to the ultraviolet.