LASER COMPONENTS

To understand the working principle of laser, we should first know about the essential components of laser, these are given below:(i)

Excitation Mechanism (Pumping): The method of raising the molecules or

atoms from their lower energy state to higher energy state is known as pumping, the pumping is needed for achieving population inversion for stimulated emission. In this case, the rate of stimulated emission will exceed the rate of induced absorption. Hence, the intensity of light will increase during each pass through the medium. This can be done a number of ways: 1. Optical pumping: we can supply energy by powerful lamps, Flash Tubes or a laser beam whose light populates excited states by photon absorption, known as optical pumping. This method is particularly suited to solid state( Ruby laser) or liquid laser(dye- lasers) 2. Electrical pumping: Atoms can be energized by electron impact in sufficiently intense gaseous discharge, known as electrical pumping; this pumping is suited in gas and semiconductor lasers. 3. Chemical pumping: Conceptually different and interesting type of pumping occurs when the required population inversion is produced directly from an exothermic chemical reaction, known as chemical pumping. Chemical pumping usually applies to material in the gas phase. 4. Atomic collision: when molecules or atoms of one gas collide to another gas molecules or atoms then energy transformed from one molecule to other and population inversion takes place, this is known as pumping by atomic collision. He Ne laser is example of this type of pumping.

(ii)

Active System: A system in which population inversion is to be achieved is

called as active system or the gain medium for a laser. Laser systems are named based on the makeup of the gain medium, which may be a gas, liquid or solid. The energy levels in gain medium those participate in the radiation, determine the wavelength of laser radiation.

(iii)

Resonant Cavity: In a laser, the active system or gain medium is enclosed in an

optical cavity (resonant cavity), usually made up of two parallel surfaces, one of which is perfectly reflecting and the other surfaces is partially reflecting. In this resonant cavity, the intensity of photons is raised tremendously through stimulated emission process.

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Helium Neon Laser:

He-Ne laser is a gas laser. It was built by Ali Javan, W. Bennett and D. Herriot in 1961.

Construction: The schematic of a typical He-Ne laser is shown in figure-1. It consists of a

long discharge tube of length about 50 cm and diameter 1 cm. The tube is filled with a mixture of helium and neon gases in the ratio of 10:1 at 1mm mercury pressure. Electrodes are provided to produce a discharge in the gas and they are connected to a high voltage power supply. The tube is sealed by inclined windows arranged at its two ends. On the axis of the tube, two reflectors M1 and M2 are fixed to obtain a resonator system. One is highly (fully) reflecting and other is partially reflecting and partially transparent. The distance between mirrors is adjusted such that it equals m/2 and support standing wave pattern.

Figure-1

Working:

He-Ne laser employs a four- level pumping scheme. The energy label diagram is shown

in figure. When power is switched on, the electric field ionizes some of the atoms in the mixture of He-Ne gases. Due to electric field, the electron and ions will be accelerated towards the anode and cathode as shown in figure-2. The helium atoms are more readily excitable than neon atoms because they are lighter. So, helium atoms get excited and reach from ground state to excited state (met stable states). The excited states of helium are 19.81eV and 20.16eV. Now the helium atoms in the Meta -stable state collide with the neon atoms in the ground state and transfer their energy to them with an additional energy 0 .05eV provided by the kinetic energy of the atoms. Such an energy transfer can take place when the two colliding atoms have identical energy states. As result, neon atoms get excited and helium atoms return back to their ground state. By, this process, a continuous pumping starts and the number of neon atoms in the excited states increases. Thus helium atoms help in achieving a population inversion in the neon atoms. Therefore, neon atoms acquire energy and go to the excited state on collision with helium atoms. The energy levels of neon atoms are E1, E2, E3, E4, E5 and E6 as shown in figure-3. At ordinary temperatures, the E5 and E3levels of neon atom are sparsely populated, and a state of population inversion is achieved between E6 and E5, E3 levels and between E4and E3 levels. Three laser transitions can occur. They are E6 E5, E6 E3 and E4 E3 transitions. Random photons emitted spontaneously set on stimulated emission and coherent radiation is produced.

(i) (ii) (iii)

E6 E3 transition: This transition generates a laser beam of red colour of wavelength 6328 A0. E4 E3 transition: It produces infrared laser beam at a wavelength of 11500 A0 (1.15m) E6 E5 transition: A laser beam of wavelength 33900 A0 (3.39 m) in the far infrared region arises due to this transition. To increase the probability of atomic collision with the walls, the discharge tube is made narrow. The He-Ne laser operates in CW (continuous working) mode as the neon atoms are excited to upper levels continuously through collisions.

Figure-2

Figure-3