The purpose of this paper is to present the latest developments of laser diagnostic techniques for the application in technically applied turbulent combustion systems (i. e. an oil spray flame burner from ＇＇KORTING HANNOVER AG＇＇) as a tool for design and optimization purposes of furnaces and boilers. The advantages of those laser based nonintrusive measurement techniques over classical mechanical probes are multiple. The most important are: The nonintrusive character of laser diagnostics offers the possibility to investigate the combustion process without any disturbing effect on the occuring reactions and the actual flow field. Second the application of new pulsed powerful UV-lasers in combination with ＇＇high-tech＇＇ intensified CCD-camera technology yield instantaneous spatial information about the occurring processes as well as temporal data. Third beside pure qualitative information about spatial distributions (OH. NO, O-2, liquid fuel, vapor phase fuel), turbulence and temporally recurring structures also quantitative data about molecular densities can be obtained. It will be shown that locally limited gas tracer seeding at different positions into the air stream inside the mixing device and subsequent planar detection in the fuel/air mixing area lead to very important information for optimization and design purposes.