LASERS

In interference of light, we have used a term coherent between two sources of light. The two sources are coherent when they vibrate in same phase or there is a constant phase difference. We know conventional light sources are sources of incoherent light. Light from such a source is not monochromatic also. In recent years, some sources are developed which are highly coherent, i.e., the radiation given out by all the emitters in the source is in mutual agreement not only in phase but also in direction of emission and polarisation. These coherent sources are called lasers. The word laser stands for the LIGHT AMPLICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION. The first successful laser (Ruby) was built by T.H.Maiman in 1960. Characteristics of Laser : 1. Directionality: The conventional light sources emit light in all directions due to spontaneous emission. Lasers emit light only in one direction due to stimulated emission as the photons travelling along the optical axis of the optical resonant cavity. The laser beam spread only 0.01mm for travel of every metre. But in the case of search light source, the light beam spread about 1 metre for every one metre that the light traverses. 2. Intensity: The laser gives out light into a narrow beam and its energy is concentrated in a small region. This concentration of energy gives enormous intensity for lasers. Even 1 watt laser is many thousand times more intense than 100 watt bulb. The number of photons coming out from a laser per second per unit area is 1022 to 1034 (photons/m2/s) depending on power of laser. The number of thermal photon coming from a black body at 1000K is only 10 16. 3. Monochromaticity: Due to stimulated emission, the light emitted by a laser is more monochromatic than that of any conventional monochromatic source. The degree of non-monochromaticity is defined as 0 For a highly stable gas laser, = 500 Hz and = 5 x 1014 Hz
The degree of non-monochromaticity =500/(5 x 1014)=10-12

Therefore the laser sourse is the best monochromatic source. But for a conventional monochromatic source, the degree of non-monochromaticity is 10 9 10 5 . Therefore the 10 14 Monochromatic source is poorer than the laser source. 4. Coherence : A conventional light source such as incandescent lamp or a natural source such as sun produces incoherent light since they emit random wavelength light waves with no common phase relationship. The waves emitted by a laser source will be in phase and are of same frequency.

Absorption of radiation: An atom has a number of quantised energy states. Initially an atom is in ground state, i.e., all of its electrons possess lowest possible enegy states. When energy is given to an atom it goes to excited state, i.e., its electron jumps to highest energy state by absorbing a quantum of radiation or photon. This process is called the absorption of radiation. If E 1 and E2 are the energies of electrons in initial and final states and is the frequency of absorbed radiation, then E2 E1 = h, where h is planks constant.

This absorption is called Stimulated absorption of light photon. Spontaneous emission:- An atom in excited state remains for only about 10 -8 Sec (life time). If then of its own accord, jumps to lower energy state by emitting a radiation. If initially the atom is in excited state 2 then it spontaneously jump to state 1, emitting a photon of frequency given by =(E2-E1)/h

This process is called spontaneous emission of radiation. Stimulated Emission:- Einstein predicted that there must be another mechanism by which an excited atom can be returned to the lower energy state. Suppose the atom is in the excited energy state E2 and a photon having energy E2-E1 is incident on it. The incident photon interacts with the excited atom and may cause the atom to come down to the lower energy state. A fresh photon is emitted in the process. The emitted photon has exactly the same energy, phase and direction as the incident photon (coherent photons). This process of forced emission of photons, caused by the incident photons is called stimulated emission. This process is key to the operation of laser.

Laser operation requires obtaining stimulated emission almost exclusively.

Requirements and Principle of Laser Action:POPULATION INVERSION:- Under normal conditions most of the atoms are in ground state or lower energy state E1 and very smaller number of atoms in higher energy state E2 (i.e., N2<N1). So that there is a little chance of stimulated emission as compared with stimulated absorption. If however by some means a large number of atoms are made available in the higher energy state, stimulated emission is promoted (i.e., N2>N1). The establishment of a situation in which number of atoms in higher energy state is greater than that in lower energy state is called the population inversion or inverted population. A system in which populated inversion is achieved is called an active system. PUMPING:- The process of creating a population inversion is called pumping. This can be done by a number of ways. Most commonly used are optical pumping, electrical discharge and direct conversion. In optical pumping a light source, such as a gaseous discharge flash tube (xenon flash lamp) is used. This method is used in solid state lasers. In electric discharge method, the electric field causes ionisation of the medium and raises it to the excited state. This method is used in gas lasers. A direct conversion of electric energy in to light takes place in semiconductor lasers. A more popular method of pumping is optical pumping. OPTICAL RESONANT CAVITY: - In the initial stages of lasing process in a medium, if stimulated photon pass through the medium only once, the resultant amplification of light would be too low. The intensity of the beam can be increased and the directional selectivity can be achieved by placing two reflecting mirrors at the two ends of the medium. The mirrors direct the photons back and forth through the medium many times with such an arrangement. Now the effective length of the amplifying medium becomes many times the actual length of laser and photons spend enough time in the medium to deexite as many atoms as possible, thus increasing the intensity of the beam. One of the mirrors is made slightly transmitting so that a small fraction say 1% of the light comes out of the region. This is the laser which becomes available to us for use.

The system of two mirrors enclosing the active medium constitutes the optical resonant cavity. HELIUM-NEON LASER Ruby laser does not generate a continuous laser beam. To overcome this difficulty, Javan, Bennet and Herriot in 1961 reported a gas laser, which gives continuous laser beam rather than pulses. Construction : It consists of (i) Active medium in the form of a mixture of Helium and Neon gas in the ratio of 8 : 1 at a total pressure of 1 torr (i.e. 1mm of Hg) (ii) A resonant cavity of quartz tube of about 0.5 m length and 5 mm diameter. The end faces of the discharge tube are tilted at the Brewster angle. These are Brewster

angle windows. There are provide the polarized laser beam of light in the plane of vibration as shown. The ends of the cavity are enclosed by two concave mirrors, one perfectly reflecting and other partially reflecting and (iii) An exciting source for creating a discharge in the tube. It is generally a radio frequency high voltage source such as Tesla coil and applied by means of metal bands around the outside of the tube.

Working :- The operation of He-Ne laser based on the interaction of atoms of two gases that are in close energy levels (i.e., Neon has energy levels very close to meta stable energy level of Helium). By the electrical discharge in the gas tube, the ground state level (E1) helium atoms are excited to higher levels E2 & E3. When the meta stable (E3 level) helium atoms and ground state neon atoms collide, the excitation energy of the helium atoms can be transferred to the neon atoms. Thus the neon atoms are excited to their higher energy level E 6. Helium atoms after transferring energy return to the ground state. Similarly the helium atoms at E2 give up their excitation energy to the ground state neon atoms and neon atoms are excited to another higher energy level E4 . The helium atoms are de-excited and return to their ground state. Since E6 & E4 of neon atoms are meta stable states, the population inversion takes place at these levels. Any one of the spontaneously emitted photons will trigger the laser action. Thus The stimulated emission takes place between E6 & E3 giving a laser light wavelength of 6328A0 . Similarly the stimulated emission between E6 & E5 gives a laser light wavelength of 3.39 m. Another stimulated emission between E4 & E3 gives a laser light wavelength of 1.15 m. The neon atoms under go from E3 to E2 and from E5 to E2 in the form of fast decay giving photons by spontaneous emission. The neon atoms are returned to the ground state from E2 by non-radiative diffusion and collision processes. Therefore there is no emission of radiation. After arriving the ground state, once again neon atoms are raised to E6 and E4 by excited helium atoms. Thus one can get continuous out put from the He-Ne laser. Some optical elements placed inside the laser system are used to absorb the infrared laser wavelengths 3.39 m & 1.15 m. The photons emitted parallel to the axis of tube bounce back and forth between polished mirrors and stimulated emission of same wavelength from other excited neon atoms. Therefore, the photons get multiplied and a powerful coherent parallel laser beam emerges from the partially reflecting end of the tube.

Fig: Energy level diagram of He Ne laser

Nd:YAG laser: Nd: YAG is a solid state laser four level laser. Nd stands for neodymium and YAG for Yttrium aluminium garnet (Y3Al5O12). It is developed by J.E. Geusic, H.M. Marcos and L.G. Van Vitert in 1964. The rod of Y3Al5O12 is doped 1% with triply ionized neodymium. Nd3+ ions will replace the Y3+ ions in the crystal. Maximum length of the rod is about 10 cm and diameter is 6-9 cm. Active medium: Nd3+ ions act as active medium or active centers. YAG is just the host. Costruction: Fig shows the design of Nd: YAG laser. The system consists of an elliptically cylindrical reflector housing the laser rod along one of its focus line and a flash lamp along the other focus line. The light leaving one focus of the ellipse will pass through the other focus after relfection from the silvered surface of the reflector. Thus the entire flash lamp radiation get focussed on the laser rod Optical resonator system: The ends of the Nd:YAG rod are polished and silvered so as to act as the optical resonator system. Pumping source: The pumping of Nd3+ ions to upper levels is done by krypton arc lamp. When the krypton flash lamp(wavelength 7200 to 8000 ) is switched on, the ground state (E1) Nd3+ ions are excited to the upper engy bands E 4 and E5. From these states, they make a non-radiative transition and come to E3 state. E3 is the metastable state. Population inversion is achieved between the levels E 3 and E2..

Nd YAG laser has following applications or uses or advantages:

They produce continuous laser at room temperature They can be used as portable systems since the rods are small. they have surgical applications. they are used material processing such as drilling, spot welding and marking. They have applications in military such as including range finders and target designators. Research applications such as Raman spectroscopy, remote sensing, mass spectrometry.

Semiconductor (GaAs) laser: Among the semiconductors there are direct band gap semiconductors and indirect band gap semiconductors (Germanium & Silicon). GaAs (Gallium Arsenide) is a direct band gap semiconductor and hence it is used to make light emitting diodes and lasers. The wavelength of the emitted light depends on the band gap of the material. In the case of indirect band gap semiconductors energy is released in the form of heat. Construction:- In GaAs diode laser, the active medium is a P-N junction diode made from crystalline Gallium Arsenide. The P-N junction layer is very thin. Electric current is applied to the crystal platelet through a strip electrode fixed to its upper surface. At the junction, the sides through which emitted light is coming out are well polished. Working:- A population inversion is obtained by injecting electrons across the junction from the n- doped region to the p-region by means of a forward bias voltage. Particularly

when a relatively large current of the order of 104amp/cm2 is passed through the junction to provide excitation, the direct recombination process is taking place efficiently. Further the emitted photons increase the rate of recombination of injected electrons from the n-region and holes in p-region by inducing more recombination. Thus more no of photons are produced. The wavelength of the emitted radiation depends upon the concentration of donor and acceptor atoms in GaAs. The efficiency of laser emission increases when we cool the GaAs diode. When cooled to 20K, GaAs laser has delivered an output of more than 2 watts of continuous power. Mechanism of stimulated emission:

Fig.a shows heavily doped semiconductor. In p-type Fermi level lies within the valance band and in n-type Fermi level lies within the conduction band. Fig.b shows forward biased semiconductor. When forward bias is applied to the junction, electrons and holes are injected into the depletion region so that the width of depletion region decreases, electrons and holes combine releases spontaneous photons and spontaneous photons initiate stimulated emission. The upper levels in the depletion region have high population than the lower levels in the same region. This is the state of population inversion. The narrow region where the population inversion is achieved is called inversion region or active region. Photons released at the junction move back and forth, stimulate other charged particles (electrons-holes) to recombine. This recombination causes emission of coherent radiation of narrow band width.
0

At room temperature GaAs laser emits light at a wavelength of 9000 A in IR region.

0

A GaAsP laser radiates at 6500 A in the visible red region. Advantages: 1. The semiconductor diode laser is simple, compact and highly efficient 2. It requires very little power and little auxiliary equipment. Limitations: 1. This laser gives more divergent beam having an angular spread of the order of
0 0

5 to 15 . 2. They are less monochromatic 3. Highly temperature sensitive 4.Coherence : Coherence is expressed in terms of ordering of light field. Laser light is characterised by a high degree of ordering of the light field than the other source.

There are two independent concepts of coherence namely temporal coherence and spatial coherence. Temporal coherence refers to the correlation between the light field at a point and that field at the same point at a later time. Thus, it is the relation between the two fields E1(x,y,z,t1) and E2(x,y,z,t2). If the phase difference between the two fields E1 and E2 is constant during the observation period, the wave is said to have temporal coherence. For He-Ne laser the temporal coherence time is 2ms. i.e., over a period of 2 milliseconds, the phase difference maintained constant. For sodium lamp, temporal coherence time is 10-10 second only; this indicates that there is no temporal coherence for light from sodium lamp. Spatial coherence refers to the correlation between two light fields at two different points on a wavefront of a given light wave. The two light fields at two different points in space preserve a constant phase difference over any time t, then they said to have spatial coherence. For He-Ne laser, the coherence length Lc is about 600 km. Over this length, the phase difference is maintained as a constant over any time. But for sodium lamp, the coherence length Lc is only 3 cm. Applications of Laser : - Following are the main characteristics of laser radiation. Due to these characteristics the laser have wide applications in different branches of science. (i) Due to highly monochromatic, high directionality and high coherence, a laser beam may be conveniently used for interference experiments. (ii) Due to narrow bandwidth, lasers are used in microwave communication and more channels of message can be accommodated. (iii) Due to narrow angular speed of laser beam makes it a very useful tool for communication between earth and moon or other satellites. The earth-moon distance has been measured with the use of lasers. (iv) By the use of lasers the storage capacity for information in computers is greatly improved due to narrowness of bandwidth. [The IBM corporation is trying to transmit entire memory bank from one computer to another by the use of laser beam] Industrial Applications:(i) They can blast holes in diamonds and hard steels. (ii) In garment industry, lasers are used to cut many layers of cloth without frayed edges. (iii) An interesting application of laser is to produce holograms which record a 3D image of an object. When the hologram is viewed again with laser, the 3D perception is achieved as it is with the actual abject. (iv) Computer print outs are done with laser printers. Videodisk can store more than 50,000 separate images on each side. Used in compact disk(CD) audio systems. With compact disk(CD), the play back music is perfect without any distortions. Medical Applications:- For the treatment of cancers, skin-tumors and for treatment of detached retina lasers are widely used. Further, brain surgery can be done by laser without any hammer or knife. Millatary Purpose:- (i) A powerful laser beam can destroy in a few sounds , big size object like aircrafts, missiles etc. by pointing the laser beam on to them. For this reason a laser is called a death ray instrument. (ii) Since the laser light waves also not easily absorbed by water it is possible to establish under water communication between submarines. (iii) It is used effectively for automatically guiding rockets and satellites. (iv) A high power crystal laser called LIDAR(light detection and ranging) has been built which sends out radiations in pulses at 10-9 /sec . This optical laser is analogous

to RADAR i.e. it sends out beams of light and detects echoes from objects therefore it is a useful tool is metrology. Chemical Applications:-(i)They can be used for investigating the structure of molecules. (ii) In Raman spectroscope by the use of lasers, the Raman spectrum can be obtained for much smaller samples and faster. (iii) Recently laser beams have been used to bombard atoms of deuterium (frozen heavy hydrogen) to produce thousands of neutrons.