Unit Five -119- Chapter Fourteen

Laser
Overview:

The word Laser means:

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Emission:

There are two kinds of emission:

• Spontaneous
Emission.

• Stimulated Emission.

Mechanism Spontaneous Emission:

• When the electrons

rotate in its original

level, the atom is called

in ground state.

• The higher energy

levels are called excited levels.

• When the atom gain photon (quantum) of energy equal to the difference

between the energy of ground level and an excited level, the electron

transfer to the higher energy level, and the atom is called at excited state.

• The atom remains at excited state for lifetime about 10-8 second, then it

return to the ground state losing the same amount of gained energy in

form of photon.

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Characteristics of Spontaneous Emission:

• It occurs when the atom relaxes from an excited state to a lower state,

emitting spontaneously the energy difference in the form of photon

without the effect of an external photon.

• It occurs after the lifetime is over.

• The emitted photons have a wide range of wavelengths.

• The emitted photons propagate randomly.

• It spreads: where its intensity decreases by increase the traveling

distance, according to the inverse square law.

• It scatters: where it can collide with other particles.

• This is the dominant radiation in ordinary sources.

Spontaneous Emission:

It is the emission from one excited atom as it relaxes from a high energy

level to a low energy level after its lifetime interval is over and under no external

stimulus.

Mechanism Stimulated Emission:

• When an excited atom at energy level E2 gain a photon of energy E2 – E1

before the lifetime is over, it forced to return to the ground state emitting

the original photon and the colliding photon (stimulating and stimulated

photons).

Characteristics of Stimulated Emission:

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• It occurs when an external photon stimulates excited atoms to emit the

energy difference in the

form of a photon.

• It occurs before the

lifetime is over.

• The emitted photons are

monochromatic (single) wavelength.

• The emitted photons are coherent and propagate in one direction as a

collimated parallel beam

• Its spreading is nil: where it disobey the inverse square law.

• It scattering is limited: where it is rarely to collide with other particles.

• This is the dominant radiation in laser sources.

Stimulated Emission:

It is the emission from one excited atom as a

result of a collision with an external photon, which has

the same energy as the one that caused it to be excited.

Photons at the end, come out in coherence.

Comparison between properties of a laser

beam and ordinary light:

Mono-chromaticity:

• Ordinary light: consists of band of

wavelength, differ in wavelength and

intensity.

• Laser beam: consists of very limited

band, and the intensity is concentrated at

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the wavelength of this spectral line, therefore it consider as

monochromatic beam.

Collimation:

• Ordinary light: characterized by spreading because it obey the inverse

square rule, therefore the width of the light beam increase by increasing

the traveling distance, and the intensity decrease.

• Laser beam: characterized by un-spreading because it disobey the

inverse square rule, therefore the width of the laser beam does not change

by increasing the traveling distance, and the intensity will not decrease.

Coherence:

• Ordinary light: its photons propagate randomly at different instants of

time, therefore it has phase difference.

• Laser beam: its photons emit at the same time, therefore it has the same

phase difference, which make the radiation intense and focused.

Intensity:

• Ordinary light: it obeys the inverse square rule, therefore its intensity

decrease by increase the traveling distance.

• Laser beam: it disobeys the inverse square rule, therefore it keep its

intensity without decrease, how long the traveling distance was.

Theory of the Laser Action:

 The active medium must be in the state of population inversion.

• Where the number of excited atoms exceed than the number of atoms at

ground state.

 Emission of radiating for the excited atom through the stimulated

emission.

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• The excited atom may produce spontaneous emission, or stimulated

emission, and the laser action depends on the emission produced by

stimulated emission which required photon of energy E2 – E1 to impact

with the excited atom.

 Amplification of stimulated emission through the resonant cavity.

• The number of photons (intensity of laser) is increase due to the multi-

reflection between two enclosing mirrors, where the photons impact with

more atoms at the excited level, causing the number of coherent photons

to increase.

Main components of a laser:

Active medium:

It is the active medium to produce the laser beam, and it can be:

a) Solid crystalline: such as ruby.

b) Semiconductor.

c) Liquid dye: such as water solution of organic dye.

d) Gas atom: such as He – Ne laser.

e) Gas molecule: such as CO2 laser.

Source of Energy:

It is responsible for exciting the active medium.

a) Electric energy: where there are two methods of excitation by electric

energy:

• By using of FR.

• By using of discharge tube under high DC voltage. which is used in gas

laser (e.g.: CO2 laser, Ar laser, He-Ne laser).

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b) Excitation by optical energy: where

there are two methods of excitation by

optical energy:

• By flashing lamps (e.g.: ruby laser).

• By laser beam (e.g.: liquid dye laser)

Using of optical energy to cause the

excitation is called optical pumping.

c) Thermal Excitation: by using the thermal effect of the kinetic energy of

gases (e.g.: He-Ne laser).

d) Excitation by chemical energy: some kind of chemical reactions

produce huge amount of energy such

as the reaction between hydrogen and

fluorine or the reaction between

deuterium fluoride and CO2. That

energy can be used to excite the active

medium stimulating it to produce

laser.

Resonant Cavity:

It is the container and the activating catalyst for amplification. There are two

types of resonant cavity:

a) External resonant cavity: in form of two parallel plane mirrors or

spherical mirror with specific focal length.

b) Internal resonant cavity: where the ends of the active material are

polished to act as mirrors, one end is semitransparent to allow laser to

emit (e.g.: ruby laser).

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Helium – Neon (He – Ne) laser:

The two elements are selected due to the approximated equality in their

energy at the meta-stable level.

Active medium:

Gas atom, where:

• Helium and Neon in ratio of 10: 1 under pressure 0.6 mm Hg.

• Neon is the responsible gas to produce laser, while helium is used to

excite Neon to reach the popular inverse case.

Source of Energy:

Electric energy, where there are two methods:

• High frequency electric field feeding the tube from the outside.

• High DC voltage difference inside the tube causing electric discharge

Resonant Cavity:

• Internal resonant cavity: where Helium and Neon are placed in a quartz

tube.

• The ends of the tube are polished to act as mirrors; one of them is nearly

99.5% reflector, while the other is 98% reflector.

Operation:

1. Helium atoms are excited by the effect of electric energy.

2. The excited helium atoms collide with the ground state Neon atoms, as

inelastic collisions casing the Neon atom to be excited.

3. The life time of the excited Neon atom is relatively long (10-3 sec),

therefore it called meta-stable level, and that cause the population

inversion to be reached.

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4. The excited Neon atom relaxes, and by spontaneous emission, it produces

random photons travel in all directions.

5. Photons at the direction of the axis of the tube suffer multi-reflection by

the two parallel mirrors, and can’t escape from the tube.

6. During the propagation of photons, they may collide with Neon atoms at

meta-stable level, causing stimulated emission, and producing more

photons in phase and in the same direction.

7. The previous step is repeated which causing the multiplies to increase the

number of photons that are in phase and in the same direction.

8. At certain intensity, part of the radiation penetrates the semitransparent

mirror, while the other part remains inside the tube to cause more of

stimulated emission.

9. Neon atoms that relax to lower energy level, loss the rest of their energy

to reach ground state, and be ready to collide with Helium atom again.

10. Helium atoms that lose their energy due to collision, get excited again by

the effect of the electric field.

Laser applications:

Laser light covers different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum,

therefore it used in different fields:

I. Holography:

• Image is formed by collecting rays reflected

from body.

• Image information are:

1. Intensity of light wave.

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2. Amplitude of light wave. Intensity is directly proportional to the square

of the amplitude.

3. Path difference, which can be indicated by

the phase angle where:

path difference
phase differeence = 2π ×
λ

• Plane image (2D Image) carries information

about the intensity only.

Recording the image at the holograph plate:

• Holography is established by Gabor, where:

1. Part of coherence light beam (laser) fall at the object and reflect

to the holograph plate.

2. Another part (reference beam) fall at the holograph plate directly.

3. Due to the interference between the two parts of the beam,

fringes formed at the plate.

View the image:

• by illuminate the plate by coherent waves of the same frequency, two

images are appear:

1. 3D virtual image behind the plate.

2. Real image at screen beside the plate.

• The same plate can store more than one image; therefore it may used to

produce movies.

II. Laser in medicine:

• Lasers are used to reconnect the retina, where the operation takes less

time and effort.

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• Lasers are used to treat cases of far and near sightedness.

• Lasers are used with optical fibers in endoscope, for diagnosing and

surgery.

III. Other applications of laser:

• Communications: where optical fibers carry the information instead of

wire caries electric signals.

• Industry: especially fine industries.

• Military applications: (e.g.: guidance, smart bombs and laser radar

[LADAR]).

• CD recording.

• Laser printing.

• Arts and laser shows.

• Surveying.

• Space research.

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