A resonantly photo-pumped x-ray laser is formed of a vanadium and titanium foil combination that is driven by two beams of intense line focused optical laser radiation. Ground state neon-like titanium ions are resonantly photo-pumped by line emission from fluorine-like vanadium ions.

An improved photovoltaic solar cell is described including a p-type amorphous silicon layer, intrinsic amorphous silicon, and an n-type polycrystalline semiconductor such as cadmium sulfide, cadmium zinc sulfide, zinc selenide, gallium phosphide, and gallium nitride. The polycrystalline semiconductor has an energy bandgap greater than that of the amorphous silicon. The solar cell can be provided as a single-junction device or a multijunction device.

This invention is comprised of an imaging Fourier transform spectrometer having a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer providing a series of images to a focal plane array camera. The focal plane array camera is clocked to a multiple of zero crossing occurrences as caused by a moving mirror of the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and as detected by a laser detector such that the frame capture rate of the focal plane array camera corresponds to a multiple of the zero crossing rate of the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The images are transmitted to a computer for processing such that representations of the images as viewed in the light of an arbitrary spectral ``fingerprint`` pattern can be displayed on a monitor or otherwise stored and manipulated by the computer.