1.Recording of hologram.

The recording of hologram is based on the phenomenon of

interference. It requires a laser source, a plane mirror or beam splitter, an object and a
photographic plate. A laser beam from the laser source is incident on a plane mirror or
beam splitter. As the name suggests, the function of the beam splitter is to split the laser
beam. One part of splitted beam, after reflection from the beam splitter, strikes on the
photographic plate. This beam is called reference beam. While other part of splitted
beam (transmitted from beam splitter) strikes on the photographic plate after suffering
reflection from the various points of object. This beam is called object beam.
The object beam reflected from the object interferes with the reference beam when both
the beams reach the photographic plate. The superposition of these two beams produces
an interference pattern (in the form of dark and bright fringes) and this pattern is
recorded on the photographic plate. The photographic plate with recorded interference
pattern is called hologram. Photographic plate is also known as Gabor zone plate in
honour of Denis Gabor who developed the phenomenon of holography. Each and every
part of the hologram receives light from various points of the object. Thus, even if
hologram is broken into parts, each part is capable of reconstructing the whole object.

Figure: Recording process in holography
2. Reconstruction of image.. In the reconstruction process, the hologram is illuminated
by laser beam and this beam is called reconstruction beam. This beam is identical to
reference beam used in construction of hologram.
The hologram acts a diffraction grating. This reconstruction beam will undergo
phenomenon of diffraction during passage through the hologram. The reconstruction
beam after passing through the hologram produces a real as well as virtual image of the
object.

Figure: Reconstruction process in Holography
One of the diffracted beams emerging from the hologram appears to diverge from an
apparent object when project back. Thus, virtual image is formed behind the hologram at
the original site of the object and real image in front of the hologram. Thus an observer
sees light waves diverging from the virtual image and the image is identical to the object.
If the observer moves round the virtual image then other sides of the object which were
not noticed earlier would be observed. Therefore, the virtual image exhibits all the true
three dimensional characteristics. The real image can be recorded on a photographic
plate.
He-Ne laser
Construction : Helium neon laser used a mixture of 10:1 for its active medium. It
consists of a long and narrow discharge tube of diameter of about 1 cm and about 80 cm
long. The mixture is at a pressure of about 1 mm of Hg, the partial pressure of helium gas
being 5 to 10 times that of neon.
Working :When electric discharge is passed through the gas mixture of He and Ne,
electrons are accelerated down the discharge tube in which mixture of He-Ne is placed.
These accelerated electrons collide with helium atoms and excite them to higher energy
levels (let us say F
2
and F
3
).These levels happen to be Metastable and thus the He atoms
spend a sufficient amount of time there before getting de-excited.



Achievement of population inversion of Neon atoms: Some of the excited states of Ne
atoms correspond approximately to the same energy of the excited levels F
2
and F
3
of He.
Thus, when He atoms in levels F
2
and F
3
collide with the Ne atoms in the ground state E
1
,
then energy exchange takes place and this results in the excitation of Ne atoms to the
levels E
4
and E
6
and de-excitation of the He atoms to the ground level F1. As the helium
atoms have longer life time in excited states F
2
and F
3
, thus this process of energy
transfer has high probability.
Therefore, the electric discharge through the gas mixture continuously populates the Ne
excited levels E
4
and E
6
. This helps to create a state of population inversion between the
levels E
4
(or E
6
) and lower energy levels E
5
and E
3
. Therefore the purpose of He atoms is
to help in achieving a population inversion in the Ne atoms.
Achievement of laser: The following three transitions will occur:
E
6
to E
5
with laser wavelength of 3.39 m or 33900 Angstroms.
E
6
to E
3
with laser wavelength of 6328 Angstroms.
E
4
to E
3
with laser wavelength of 1.15 m or 11500 Angstroms.
The wavelengths of 3.39 m
and 1.15 m corresponds to
infrared region and
wavelength 6328 Angstroms
corresponds to red light
wavelength (visible
region).Mirrors of the optical
resonators are so designed to
show low reflectivity for
wavelengths 3.39 m and
1.15 m. Thus photons of these wavelengths will be eliminated. Therefore, the photons
of wavelengths 6328 Angstroms will move back and forth in optical resonator system and
thus laser of wavelength 6328 Angstroms emerges through the partially reflected
mirror.The excited Ne atoms drop down from levels E
3
to E
2
through spontaneous
emission and this process will emit a photon of wavelength 0.6 m. As the level E
2
is also
Metastable, there is a probability of excitation of Ne atoms from E
2
to E
3
leading to
quenching of the population inversion. To eliminate quenching, the narrow discharge
tube (diameter of tube is made small) is used because Ne atoms de-excited to level E
1
from E
2
through collisions with the walls of the tube.
Semiconductor laser
Construction: The semiconductor laser (gallium arsenide (GaAs)) is heavily doped
semiconductor. Its n-region is formed by heavily doping with tellurium in a concentration
of 10
17
to 10
19
atoms/cm
3
while its p-region is formed by doping with zinc in
concentration around 10
19
atoms/cm
3
. The two faces of semiconductor which are
perpendicular to junction plane make a resonant cavity. The top and bottom faces of
diode, which are parallel to junction plane are metallised so as to make external
connections. The front and back faces are roughned to suppress the oscillations in
unwanted direction. The active medium in GaAs is GaAS. But it is also commonly said
that depletion region is the active medium in semiconductor laser. The thickness of the
depletion layer is usually very small (0.1 m).

Working: When p-n junction
diode is forward biased, then
there will be injection of
electrons into the conduction
band along n-side and production
of more holes in valence band
along p-side of the junction.
Thus, there will be more number
of electrons in conduction band
comparable to valence band, so
population inversion is achieved.
Therefore, when the electrons and
holes are injected into the junction
region from opposite sides with forward biasing, then population inversion is achieved
between levels near the bottom of the conduction band and empty levels near the top of
the valence band. When electrons recombine with the holes in junction region, then there
will be release of energy in the form of photons. This release of energy in the form of
photons happens only in special types of semiconductors like Galium-Arsenide(GaAs).
Otherwise in semiconductors like silicon and germanium, whenever holes and electrons
recombine, energy is released in the form of heat, thus Si and Ge cannot be used for the
production of laser. The spontaneously emitted photon during recombination in the
junction region of GaAs will trigger laser action near the junction diode. The photons
emitted have a wavelength from 8200 to 9000 in the infrared region.