Lecture 2 - Laser Basics

Raghunandan Mohan Rao Tuesday 18th February, 2014

Laser System Design

Analogous to oscillators in electrical circuits, which is used to generate periodic electrical signals, a Laser is an optical oscillator that produces periodic optical signals. Contrary to popular belief, a laser is an oscillator, not an amplier as the name suggests (LASER - Light amplication by stimulated emission of radiation ). If amplication wouldve been replaced by oscillation, the acronym would have been LOSER!!!

Figure 1: Block diagram of a laser As shown in gure 1 the laser has the following components in its design 1. Pump: Like an electronic oscillator needs a power source for driving the active device in the circuit, a laser also needs a power source, called as the pump. There are various sources of pumping, for e.g. in semiconductor lasers it is electrical current. 2. Gain medium: Analogous to electronic oscillators in which there is a gain block comprising of the active device that is responsible for amplication, a laser similarly has a gain medium. In this, a material is chosen such that it has amplication properties at thermal equilibrium, which occurs by means of stimulated emission (discussed later).
This document has been written by the author for his personal use, and the material is based on the lectures by Dr. Andrew Weiner for his course Ultrafast Optics at Purdue University. For the Video Lectures, visit the course webpage https://nanohub.org/resources/11874/about. The material presented here does not directly conform to the lecture videos, but to the notes that the author made while studying from them. The author can be reached at raghunandan.m.rao@gmail.com

3. Feedback: As in electronics, feedback is necessary in lasers too. Here, mirrors M1 and M2 serve the purpose. M2 is the output coupling mirror out of which laser output is obtained. When it comes to the working of the laser, 1. The initial light signal enters the gain medium. 2. Upon passing through the gain medium, the light power gets amplied. 3. When it encounters the output coupling mirror M2 , a part of the power gets reected and the remaining power gets transmitted out of the cavity, which is the laser output. 4. The reected signal gets amplied by the gain medium on the return trip and gets reected by the mirror M1 (ideally perfectly reective). 5. Then, the process repeats itself from step 1. To delve further into the working of a general laser, a quantitative analysis is presented now. Consider the starting eld of the light wave in step 1 of gure 1 to be a plane wave described by E (z = 0, t) = {E0 ej (tkz ) } (1)

After amplication in the gain medium, when the lightwave reaches the output coupler at mirror M2 , the amplied electric eld could be written as (by suppressing space argument z ) E= E0 ejt ej c (x+y) ej c n lg e c n

lg

(2)

Assuming that for the time being, the medium is isotropic and non-dispersive, by Maxwells equations the medium will have a linear dispersion relation given by n (3) c where n is the refractive index of the medium. But since the gain medium has an amplication factor associated with it, its refractive index will have to be complex, thus k= ng = n + jn
n c

(4)

lg It is a result of equation [4] that equation [2] has the gain term e associated with it. For n > 0, the medium has gain and for n < 0, the medium has a loss/attenuation factor associated with it. If the reectivities of the eld at mirrors M1 and M2 are r1 and r2 respectively, then the electric eld Ert after one round-trip is

Ert =

E0 r1 r2 ejt e2j c (x+y+n lg ) e2 c n

lg

(5)

Now, the conditions in which the electric eld repeats itself after each round-trip is when E (z = 0, t) = Ert (6)

So, for consistency of the electric eld at each round trip happens when the real, and imaginary factors in equation [5] will equal 1, r1 r2 e2j c (x+y+n lg ) e2 c n r1 r2 e
2 n c

lg lg

=1 =1 (Gain Condition)
jm

(7a) (7b)

e =e (x + y + n lg ) = m c

2j (x+y +n lg ) c

(Phase Condition)

(7c)

Taking l = n lg + x + y , we have from equation [7c] l = m c where m is an integer, the corresponding frequency m thus given by cm m = l mc fm = 2l Thus, the frequency spacing of the laser cavity resonances is given by f = fm fm1 = c 2l (10) (8)

(9a) (9b)

1.1

Physical Interpretation

Now, 2l is the round-trip optical path length for the lightwave inside the laser resonator cavity, thus the corresponding round-trip time for it would be 2l c c 1 = round-trip time 2l

round-trip time = frequency of spacing =

(11a) (11b)

The same phase conditions also occur in optical passive resonators, since the presence of the active gain medium has no appreciable eect on the phase conditions in this analysis. Gain is a laser is determined by specic atomic/molecular levels or energy bands (in semiconductors), and have a frequency response thus exhibiting resonances,

Figure 2: Gain/Loss curves for a general laser As shown in gure 2 some modes are excited as they are amplied by the gain media (they fall under the gain prole for which gain > loss, while the rest of the modes are attenuated after a few round 3

trips as loss > gain for such frequencies. But generally, only one mode of the laser is excited while the rest are suppressed. The reason for not using multi-mode operation of the laser is because, 1. A general gain medium is broadband in which the gain functions FWHM (fg ) centre frequency (resonant frequency), and when fg f , the dierential loss function between 2 consecutive modes is very small, and any perturbations/noise sources will lead to beating and instability which ultimately leads to uctuations in the operating wavelength and power output of the laser. Moreover if there are a large number of modes, the gain prole makes the mode amplitudes unequal which leads to modulation in the laser output. This is one reason why multimode lasers are not used for precision instrumentation. 2. These multiple modes violate the steady state gain condition imposed by equation [7b], which means that with these modes, gain > 1 which leads to indenite growth in the eld components. For the steady state condition gain = loss. Now to eliminate the multiple modes in the laser, they have to be separated out or attenuated by some mechanism in each round trip, this is done by using an optical lter that has a frequency response as shown in gure 3 with transmission at fm .

Figure 3: Frequency response of an optical lter Now with the optical lter in the laser cavity, barring the intended resonant mode, all other frequencies will be suppressed in subsequent round trips resulting in a single frequency output as shown in gure 4. This is termed as single-mode operation.

Figure 4: Single-mode operation of a laser using optical lter

Now, this approach is not very robust for single-mode operation. The reason for this deciency has got to do with the saturation inside the gain medium which needs to be understood. The next sub-section is dedicated for this purpose.

1.2

Absorption/Emission processes and the gain medium

There are mainly 3 processes that are of interest to us, 1. Stimulated Absorption 2. Stimulated Emission 3. Spontaneous Emission In stimulated processes, the incoming light is either amplied/attenuated in emission/absorption respectively, but the phase of the wave remains the same (coherence). In spontaneous processes, there is emission/absorption without any coherence between the photons, and the phase of the emitted/transmitted photons is random unlike its stimulated counterparts.

Figure 5: Photon absorption and emission processes in gain media Gain in a laser occurs mainly due to the process of stimulated emission, which is a quantum mechanical process. By Einsteins hypothesis, probability of stimulated absorption in any 2-level quantum th 2 mechanical system will be N N1 if N1 > N2 where Ni is the population of atoms in the i state. By the laws of thermodynamics, at thermal equilibrium the population is lower in the lower energy states, than the upper energy states. So in this case, there will be net absorption . But if the populations are made such that N2 > N1 then owing to the larger population in the upper level, there will be net stimulated emission and hence net gain. This scenario is called as population inversion . When it comes to spontaneous emission there is a rate of decay associated with it. As a general term for all of these processes the transition rate per atom [s1 ] is the rate at which transitions occur between the appropriate energy levels due to the intensity of the incoming light waves (I ). rate: I 5 [s1 ] (12a)

In equation 12, is called as the absorption cross section. In quantum physics, the strength of any interaction is characterized by the cross section , analogous to the fact that in classical physics, the more the cross section of the particle the more will be the probability of the interaction occurring successfully!! is a material property. To obtain the expression for the gain/loss of the gain medium, the law of conservation of energy is used.

Figure 6: Schematic diagram to calculate the gain in the medium using law of conservation of energy. Let Ni : number of atoms in the ith energy level per unit volume [m3 ] for i = u, l (upper, lower), and Nph : photon ux [s1 ] (number of photons crossing the area per unit time). Thus, at z = 0 we have AI (0) (13) Now, whenever there is a transmission, a photon will be emitted by the atom through stimulated emission. The number of atoms that makes such transitions per unit time is given by Nph (0) = Net energy lost into the medium : I (Nu Nl )(Az ) (14)

The rst term in equation [14] is the transition rate dened above. The number of atoms that make the transition per second, is equal to the number of photons generated in the volume slice of (Az ) and hence we get the equality Nph (z ) Nph (0) = I (Nu Nl )(Az ) (15)

Taking the limit as z 0 in equation [15], we have the dierential equation dNph = dz I (Nu Nl )A (16)

By substituting equation [13] in equation [16], we get dNph = (Nu Nl )Nph dz 6 (17)

The solution to this dierential equation is Nph (z ) = Nph (0)e(Nu Nl )z (18)

Now, since the intensity is related to the photon number densities, the intensity relation will follow the same form as equation [18], I (z ) = I (0)e(Nu Nl )z (19)

Since the electric eld follows the intensity as I |E |2 and all exponents are real in equation [19], it should be true that E (z ) = E (0)e
(Nu Nl )z 2

= E (0)eg

(20)

Where g is the gain. To summarize, there is gain if Nu > Nl which is termed as population inversion. Finally, like in electrical devices and ampliers, the laser gain also exhibits saturation. This has got to do mainly with the population distribution in the upper and lower states. To analyze the origins of gain saturation in lasers, the most popular and feasible 4-level model is used, which is depicted in gure 7

Figure 7: A 4-level laser system model. Population inversion is achieved between levels |3 and |4 . S is the rate of stimulated emission given by 34 I34 (21) Where 34 is the stimulated emission cross section between levels |3 and |4 . W is the pump rate (pump is generally light from another laser used for the |1 to |2 transition here). Also, we have 1 = 1 =rate of spontaneous emission, and 1 =rate of decay of the population from level |a to g 34 ab level |b . Based on these, the rate equations are constructed S=
4

N=total number density of atoms =

i=1

Ni

(22)

Where Ni is population density in ith state.

dN3 dt dN4 dt

dN1 N4 N1 W = dt 41 dN2 N2 = N1 W dt 23 N3 N2 (N3 N4 )S = 23 34 N3 N4 + = (N3 N4 )S 41 34

(23a) (23b) (23c) (23d)

An approximation is done at this juncture, the main idea is that the decay from levels |2 to |3 , and |4 to |1 happen very quickly, meaning that 41 and 23 are very small. This would result in very low populations in levels |2 and |4 . As a result, we approximately take N2 = N4 = 0. So, essentially, what happens at level 3 is 1. The atom is pumped from level |1 to level |2 at a rate W . 2. These atoms very quickly decay from level |2 to |3 . 3. At level |3 , these atoms can go to |4 by the means of stimulated emission, or by spontaneous emission. Thus in the steady state condition of laser operation, by these above processes we have
1 W N1 = N3 (S + 34 ) 1 W (N N3 ) = N3 (S + 34 ) N3 W = 1 N W + S + 34

(24a)

Figure 8: Typical saturation of population levels in laser gain media. For non-zero values of S , the gain will drop because depopulation of N3 reduces the population inversion which inhibits lasing. Higher the value of S , higher will be the pump required to populate N3 . When S = 0, the corresponding gain is called the small signal gain (g0 ).

S = 0; S = 0;

small signal gain = g0 g0 saturated gain = g = S 1 + SSAT 8

(25a) (25b)

1 Where SSAT =Saturation Parameter= W + 34 . To prove that the gain saturation takes a form described in equation [25b], consider the expression in equation [24a] when S = 0

S = 0; S = 0;

N3,0 W = 1 N W + 34 N3,g W = 1 N W + S + 34 1 1+
S 1 W +34

(26a) (26b) (26c) (26d)

N4 0 (N3 N4 ) N3 N3,g g = = g0 N3,0

1 W + 34 1 W + S + 34

Equation [26c] results in the gain expression being expressed in terms of N3 as in equation [26d], due to the dependence of gain on (N3 N4 ) as shown in equation [20]. The way these equations relate to the working of a laser is 1. Initially, the gain is turned on very quickly, like an overshot. 2. Light is emitted by stimulated emission, and the intensity and population inversion is building up. 3. As it gets more strong, the stimulated emission rate S gets stronger, eectively saturating the gain as depicted in equation [20]. 4. The gain medium cannot keep up with the increased S and hence, gain begins to fall. 5. A balance is achieved when the gain reaches the cavity round-trip loss, and this power is enough to maintain a constant light intensity output by maintaining the gain and phase conditions. 6. When the gain = loss, the power value wont change anymore. Amplitude and gain conditions will be met. At laser threshold, gain = loss, the corresponding gain called as the threshold gain denoted by gth . It is to be noted here that g0 can be controlled experimentally. gth = loss g = gth (27)

gth = gth + S= S

g0 S 1 + SSAT

gth = g0 SSAT g0 1 SSAT gth

(28a)