Laser diagnostics of edge plasmas and laser diagnostics of plasmas for industrial applications (invited)

In plasma physics, laser diagnostics were first developed to probe the core region of magnetically confined high-temperature plasmas, but the advent of various new lasers has turned out to be useful for edge plasma studies. The recent developments of various arc and glow discharges for industrial plasma applications have required measurement of the same quantities as in the edge plasma studies and expertise in the latter has been fully exploited for the former. The experience thus gained has then been used for the advantage in the studies of edge plasma behavior in high-temperature plasmas. The interplay of these two fields of plasma studies, where laser diagnostics of plasmas (which we call "laser-aided plasma diagnostics") is extensively used, is discussed.