PRINCIPLES OF LASER ACTION

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We have already discussed the properties of Lasers in the previous section. In this section we
intend to describe the basic principles involved in the generation of laser. In order to
understand the basic laser operation, we must consider the important terms like absorption and
losses, stimulated emission, spontaneous emission, feedback etc.

Absorption, spontaneous emission and stimulated emission:

As we all know that atoms and molecules can exist only in certain energy states. The state of
lowest energy is called the ground state; all other states have more energy than the ground
state and are called excited states. Each excited state, of which there are many, has a fixed
amount of energy over and above that of the ground state. Under ordinary conditions, almost
all atoms and molecules are in their ground states. Three types of processes are possible for a
two-level atomic system. In the first, an incoming photon excites the atomic system from a
lower energy state into a higher energy state. This is called absorption or
sometimes stimulated absorption. It is called stimulated absorptions because of the fact that
the atoms absorb the incident energy at certain frequencies only. Stimulated absorption occurs
when a photon strikes an atom with just exactly the proper energy to induce an electronic
transition between two energy states. In case a broadband light is incident on a given two level
atomic system, we can observe that the complete spectrum is not absorbed but only certain
discrete lines are absorbed depending on the difference in their energy levels. This process
reduces the lower level population and in the process increases the upper level population. The
population or the number of atoms in states E1 and E2 at any time would be N1 and
N2 respectively. When radiation passes through a material, it is absorbed according to:

Ix = I0e-x

(1)

Where Ix is the radiance after traveling distance x through the material with absorption
coefficient as a and I0 is the initial intensity of light. The absorption depends on the
population difference between N1 and N2 and the refractive index of the medium.
Rate of stimulated absorption, R12 (abs), from level 1 to 2 is given as:

R12 (abs) = B12 N1

(2)

Where B12 is the Einstein's coefficient for stimulated absorption and has the units as cm 3/s2J,
N1 is the population in the ground state and is the energy density per unit frequency of the
incoming photons.
Once the atom or molecule has been produced in its excited state, there is a probability that it
will emit radiation again and return to a lower energy state. This lower energy state may be
either the ground state or still one of the excited states but having lower energy level. In the
process, a photon is emitted. In this emission process, where the atoms spontaneously goes to a
lower energy state through the emission of a photon is called spontaneous emission or
fluorescence. This emission process is a random one and the emitted light goes off in all
directions, and the wave properties of the light are randomly out of step with each other and
thus are incoherent.
The rate of spontaneous emission, R21 (spon), from level 2 to 1 is given as:

R21 (spon) = A21 N2

(3)

Where A21 is the coefficient of spontaneous emission and has the unit of s -1, N2 is the number of
atoms in level 2.
One can observe that this spontaneous decay of the upper level takes place in the absence of
an electromagnetic field and the rate is proportional to the population of that level and thus
does not depend on the intensity of the excitation source. It is purely a statistical phenomenon
related with time and space and is dependent on the lifetime of the excited state. If the
transition lifetime is very large, it is considered as a forbidden transition.
Excited atoms can loose their energy not only by spontaneous emission, but also by induced or
stimulated emission and therefore the emission output of the system consists of spontaneous
and stimulated emissions. The probability of stimulated emission is proportional to the
intensity of the energy density of external radiation and the induced emission has a firm phase
relationship with it, unlike spontaneous emission. Since the spontaneous photons have no phase
relations with each other, the output is incoherent. But stimulated emission has the same
phase, direction, spectral and polarization properties as the stimulating field and both are
indistinguishable in all aspects. Consequently, the laser output is coherent. In fact it is this
stimulated emission, under certain conditions as explained in the earlier section that comes out
of the laser device as laser.
Rate of stimulated emission, R21 (stim), from level 2 to 1 is given as:

R21 (stim) = B21 N2

(4)

Where B21 is the Einstein's coefficient for stimulated emission and has the dimensions as m 3/s2J,
N2 is the population in the excited state and is the energy density per unit frequency of the
triggering photons.
Considering an ideal material with only two non-degenerate energy levels, where absorption,
spontaneous emission and stimulated emission takes place, one can arrive at the following
conclusion.
Absorption = spontaneous emission + stimulated emission

i.e. B12N1 r(n) = A21N2 + B21N2 r

This situation is shown in the figure 1.

(5)

At any given instance, under normal circumstances, both stimulated and spontaneous emissions
may occur, but the probability of stimulated emission is pretty low. One can find out this ratio
of spontaneous to stimulated emission using one of the following equations:

(6)

(7)
where is the radiation energy density and is equal to Nh, N being the number of photons of
frequency per unit volume and k is Boltzmann's constant. Considering a case of ordinary bulb
having a filament temperature of about 5000K and emitting radiation in the wavelength range
of 0.6 micron corresponding to frequency of 5 x 10 14 Hz, the probability of stimulated
emission is approximately one hundredth of that of the spontaneous emission. At lower
temperatures, it would even be orders less than this.
The ratio of the probability of spontaneous to stimulated light emission depends directly on
the frequency of emission or inversely to the wavelength.Thus in the microwave region,
stimulated emission is more probable than spontaneous, hence the early production of the
maser. In the optical region, spontaneous emission is more likely than stimulated emission and
this gets worse as we go into the UV and X-ray regions of the spectrum.
Under thermal equilibrium, the population N2 and N1 of levels E2 and E1 respectively
governed by the fact that the rate of upward transitions should be equal to rate of
downward transitions.
The population density of atoms N1 and N2 in ground level E1 and excited state E2 can be

estimated using Boltzmann's relationship as follows:

(8)

Since, (E2 - E1) / kT is always positive, irrespective of the value of temperature T, N2 must be
less than N1 if the system is remain at thermal equilibrium. At the most the excited state
population N2 (t) reaches a steady state at t, and the highest proportion of atoms that can
exist in the excited state N2/Ntotal<1/2. Under these conditions the material always acts as an
absorber of incident photons.
The above discussion implies that in a two level system the number of atoms in the excited
state can never exceed the number in the ground state and hence can never work as a laser. If
the system is to act as a laser, an incident photon must have a higher probability of causing
stimulated emission than of being absorbed i.e. the rate of stimulated emission must exceed
that of absorption. In other words, the laser action is possible only when N2 > N1. This nonequilibrium condition is known as called population inversion.
Before we discuss about the techniques of population inversion and laser action, these are
some additional important points related to Absorption, spontaneous emission and stimulated
emission:
In case of spontaneous emission of a photon, the probability of its
emission is inversely related to the average length of time that an atom
can reside in the upper level of the transition before it relaxes. This
time is known as the SPONTANEOUS LIFETIME. Typically, the
spontaneous lifetime is of the order of 10-8 - 10-9 sec. The shorter the
spontaneous lifetime, the greater is the probability that spontaneous
emission will occur.
In certain materials, there are energy levels, which has the spontaneous
lifetime of the order of microseconds to a few milliseconds. These
levels are known as METASTABLE levels. The probability of transitions
involving metastable levels is relatively low.
As the likelihood of spontaneous emission decreases the conditions that
favor stimulated emission are enhanced. If an atom is excited into a
metastable state it can stay there long enough for a photon of the
correct frequency to arrive. Such a situation promotes stimulated
emission at the expense of spontaneous emission.
In case of stimulated emission, atoms in an upper energy level can be
triggered or stimulated in phase by an incoming photon of a specific
energy. The incident photon must have an energy corresponding to the
energy difference between the upper and lower states. The emitted
photons have the same energy as incident photon. These photons are in
phase with the triggering photon and also travel in its direction.
Stimulated processes like stimulated absorption, or stimulated emission
require incoming photons of the right frequency, whereas spontaneous

emission can take place in the absence of incoming photon also.

Spontaneous emission is completely isotropic. Stimulated processes, on
the other hand, have a built-in preference for emission in the direction
of the incident flux of photons.

Population Inversion and Laser Operation

As discussed above, whenever light is incident on the material, there is competition between
absorption, spontaneous emission and stimulated emission processes. Under normal equilibrium
conditions, the population of various levels is given by Boltzmann's relationship and thus N2 will
always be less than N1. Further, stimulated photon emission is much less than the spontaneous
photon emission and the absorption. For a system to work as a laser one requires that
stimulated emission should exceed photon absorption; it leads us to the following two
conditions:
N2 > N1: i.e. Population Inversion
As per equation (6) or (7), the value of (the radiation energy density
which is equal to Nh) should be as large as possible.

First condition cannot be achieved under thermal equilibrium conditions. This implies that in
order to create population inversion, one must look for non-thermal equilibrium system and
thus the need for special laser materials.
The second condition that requires higher value of r necessitates the use of an additional
supply of large amount of energy of correct wavelength to excite the desired transition. The
process is known as pumping. Various techniques include optical, electrical, chemical, gas
dynamic etc.
Population inversion though is the primary condition, but in itself is not sufficient for producing
a laser. As there are certain losses of the emitted photons within the material itself in addition
to spontaneous emission, one has to think about the geometry that can overcome these losses
and there is overall gain. This requires an optical cavity or resonator.
The principle behind the laser is like this. Suppose we can produce a large number of atoms all
in excited states. If one of the atoms emitted spontaneously, then the emitted photon would
stimulate other atoms to emit. These emitted photons would, in turn, stimulate further
emission. The result would be an intense burst of coherent radiation.

These issues have

been discussed
below:

A representative
laser system is
shown in Figure (2).
It consists of three
basic parts.

An active medium with a suitable set of energy levels to support laser

action.
A source of pumping energy in order to establish a population inversion.
An optical cavity or resonator to introduce optical feedback and so
maintain the gain of the system overcoming all losses.

Brief description of each of the above components and their basic function are given
below.
1. Active laser
medium or gain
medium: Laser
medium is the
heart of the laser
system and is
responsible for
producing gain and
subsequent
generation of
laser. It can be a
crystal, solid,
liquid,
semiconductor or
gas medium and
can be pumped to
a higher energy
state. The material
should be of
controlled purity,
size and shape and
should have the
suitable energy
levels to support
population

inversion. In other words, it must have a metastable state to support stimulated emission.
Most lasers are based on 3 or 4 level energy level systems, which depends on the lasing
medium. These systems are shown in figs 3a and 3b. In case of a three-level laser, the
material is pumped from level 1 to level 3, which decays rapidly to level 2 through
spontaneous emission. Level 2 is a metastable level and promotes stimulated emission from
level 2 to level 1.
On the other hand in a
four level laser, the
material is pumped to
level 4, which is a fast
decaying level, and the
atoms decay rapidly to
level 3, which is a
metastable level. The
stimulated emission
takes place from level 3
to level 2 from where the
atoms decay back to
level 1. Four level lasers
is an improvement on a
system based on three level systems. In this case, the laser transition takes place between
the third and second excited states. Since lower laser level 2 is a fast decaying level which
ensures that it rapidly gets empty and as such always supports the population inversion
condition.
2. Excitation or pumping mechanism: Absorption of the energy by the atoms, electrons, ions
or molecules as the case may be, of the active medium is a primary requisite in the
generation of laser. In order to excite these elements to higher energy levels, an excitation
or pumping mechanism is necessary. It is well known that under the equilibrium state, as
per Boltzman?s conditions, higher energy levels are much less populated than the lower
energy levels. One of the requirements of laser action is population inversion in the levels
concerned. i.e. to have larger population in the upper levels than in the lower ones.
Otherwise absorption will dominate at the cost of stimulated emission. There are various
types of excitation or pumping mechanisms available, the most commonly used ones are
optical, electrical, thermal or chemical techniques, which depends on the type of the laser
gain medium employed. For example, Solid state lasers usually employ optical pumping
from high energy xenon flash lamps (e.g., ruby, Nd:YAG) or from a second pump laser or
laser diode array (e.g., DPSS frequency doubled green lasers). Gas lasers use an AC or DC
electrical discharge through the gas medium, or external RF excitation, electron beam
bombardment, or a chemical reaction. The DC electrical discharge is most common for
'small' gas lasers (e.g., helium-neon, argon ion, etc.). DC most often pumps semiconductor
lasers current. Liquid (dye) lasers are usually pumped optically.
3. Optical resonator: Optical resonator plays a very important role in the generation of the
laser output, in providing high directionality to the laser beam as well as producing gain in
the active medium to overcome the losses due to, straying away of photons from the laser
medium, diffraction losses due to definite sizes of the mirrors, radiation losses inside the
active medium due to absorption and scattering etc. In order to sustain laser action, one
has to confine the laser medium and the pumping mechanism in a special way that should
promote stimulated emission rather than spontaneous emission. In practice, photons need
to be confined in the system to allow the number of photons created by stimulated
emission to exceed all other mechanisms. This is achieved by bounding the laser medium
between two mirrors as shown in figure 2. On one end of the active medium is the high
reflectance mirror (100% reflecting) or the rear mirror and on the other end is the partially
reflecting or transmissive mirror or the output coupler. The laser emanates from the output
coupler, as it is partially transmissive. Stimulated photons can bounce back and forward
along the cavity, creating more stimulated emission as they go. In the process, any
photons which are either not of the correct frequency or do not travel along the optical

axis are lost.

Laser action: Interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter produces absorption and
spontaneous emission. Absorption and spontaneous emission are natural processes. For the
generation of laser, stimulated emission is essential. Stimulated emission has to be induced or
stimulated and is generated under special conditions as stated by Einstein in his famous paper
of 1917. i.e. ?when the population inversion exists between upper and lower levels among
atomic systems, it is possible to realize amplified stimulated emission and the stimulated
emission has the same frequency and phase as the incident radiation?. Einstein combined
Plank? law with Boltzmann?s statistics in formulating the concept of stimulated emission. In
electronic, atomic, molecular or ionic systems the upper energy levels are less populated than
the lower energy levels under equilibrium conditions. Pumping mechanism excites say, atoms
to a higher energy level by absorption (Figs.3a and 3b).
The atom stays at the higher level for a certain duration and decays to the lower stable ground
level spontaneously, emitting a photon, with a wavelength decided by the difference between
the upper and the lower energy levels. This is referred to as natural or spontaneous emission
and the photon is called spontaneous photon. The spontaneous emission or fluorescence has no
preferred direction and the photons emitted have no phase relations with each other, thus
generating an incoherent light output (Fig.4). But it is not necessary that the atom is always
de-excited to ground state. It can go to an intermediate state, called metastable state with a
radiation less transition, where it stays for a much longer period than the upper level and
comes down to lower level or to the ground state. Since period of stay of atoms in the
metastable state is large, it is possible to have a much larger number of atoms in metastable
level in comparison to the lower level so that the population of metastable state and the lower
or ground state is reversed. i.e. there are more atoms in the upper metastable level than the
lower level. This condition is referred to as population inversion. Once this is achieved, laser
action is initiated in the following fashion. The atom in the metastable state comes down to
the ground state emitting a photon. This photon can stimulate an atom in the metastable state
to release its photon in phase with it. The photon thus released is called stimulated photon. It
moves in the same direction as the initiating photon, has the same wavelength and polarization
and is in phase with it, thus producing amplification. Since there are a large number of
initiating photons, it forms an initiating electromagnetic radiation field. An avalanche of
stimulated photons is generated, as the photons traveling along the length of the active
medium stimulates a number of excited atoms in the metastable state to release their photons.
This is referred to as the stimulated emission. These photons are fully reflected by the rear
reflector (100% reflective) and the number and consequently the intensity of stimulated
photons increases as they traverse through the active medium, thus increasing the intensity of
radiation field of stimulated emission. At the output coupler, a part of these photons are
reflected and the rest is transmitted as the laser output. This action is repeated and the
reflected photons after striking the rear mirror, reach the output coupler in the return path.
The intensity of the laser output increases as the pumping continues. When the input pumping
energy reduces, the available initiating and subsequently the stimulated photons decrease
considerably and the gain of the system is not able to overcome the losses, thus laser output
ceases. Since the stimulation process was started by the initiating photons, the emitted
photons can combine coherently, as all of them are in phase with each other, unlike in the case
of spontaneous emission and coherent laser light is emitted (Fig.5). Though the laser action will
continue as long as the energy is given to the active medium, it may be stated that pulsed laser
is obtained if the population inversion is available in a transient fashion and continuous wave
(CW) laser is possible if the population inversion is maintained in a steady-state basis. If the
input energy is given by say a flash lamp, the output will be a pulsed output and the laser is
called a pulsed laser. If equilibrium can be achieved between the number of photons emitted
and the number of atoms in the metastable level by pumping with a continuous arc lamp
instead of a flash lamp, then it is possible to achieve a continuous laser output, which is called
continuous wave laser.

We may conclude that, laser action is preceded by three processes, namely, absorption,
spontaneous emission and stimulated emission - absorption of energy to populate upper levels,
spontaneous emission to produce the initial photons for stimulation and finally, stimulated
emission for generation of coherent output or laser.
This web site does not intend to provide complete rate equations related to laser
generation; only the salient features of the same have been given above.

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