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EP410:

Chapter 9 Popula3on
Inversion
Dinesh Kabra, Phys. IITB

In thermal equilibrium Nu<Nl


Pumping is required to overcome the Boltzmann distribu3on Nu>Nl
Necessary condi3on (but not sucient)
Two level system can not generate popula3on inversion
Inclusion of extra level is must results in reduc3on in eciency

Contents
Inversions and 2-level systems
Radia3ve decay rates radia3ve vs collisional
Steady-state inversions in 3 and 4-level systems
3-level where middle level is Eu
3-level where highest level in Eu
4-level system

Transient popula3on inversions


Inversion destroying processes

Radia3on trapping
Electron collisional thermaliza3on
Absorp3on within gain medium
Excited state absorp3on
Ground state absorp3on

Inversions and two-level Systems


Consider a two-level atomic system
Gain length = L
Atomic species = N
Total decay rate = ul
Radia3ve decay rate = Aul
By deni3on ul Aul
Emission cross sec3on = ul()
(valid for both homogeneous & inhomogeneous broadenings)

At room temperature all the atoms are in lower level as per Boltzmann distribu3on
Nl N and Nu 0
On op3cal excita3on with an intensity of I0 and frequency ul we nd light gets absorb as it
travels through the medium:


For weak input intensity, light beam gets absorbed with an absorp3on coecient of ul()Nl

Inversions and two-level Systems


con3nue
Our assump3on prior to this chapter was that we increase the pump intensity I0
to very high value that eventually all of the popula3on is transferred from level l
to level u by absorp3on of the input beam.
This is not possible, because, as soon as a frac3on of the popula3on is pumped
to level u, Nu becomes greater than zero. Since Nu = N-Nl, we can rewrite
previous equa3on as

As the popula3on leaves level l, the ra3o Nl/N begins to drop below 1. When it
reaches 0.5, no more energy will be absorbed, because the value of exponent
is zero. The gain medium at this point is actually transparent at the frequency
ul! Nu can never exceed Nl.
Hence in two level system it is impossible to get popula3on inversion and we will
see how can we overcome from this J

Radia3ve Decay Rates- Radia3ve vs


Collisional
Before we move to 3 and 4-level
laser system, we must introduce a
very important property of decay
rates.

From Chapter 4 we know
Radia?ve decay rate ul2
Aul Eul2

Furthermore, it has been shown


empirically that collisional decay
rate has the property:

kul 1/Eul

Steady-state Inversions in 3- and 4-


Level Systems
v Nul > 1
v dN/dt = 0
v Pumping ux
is constant
v Constant ow
of energy
among the
levels.
v What would
be the
expression for
Nu/Nl, i.e.,
Nul

3- Level Laser with Intermediate Level as Upper Laser Level


Aul>> ul
Eli & Eul >> kT
Principle of detailed balance
Nuul = Nllu







Very small at






room temp
for values of Eul associated with visible
lasers
No external pumping occurs from level l to
level u

3- Level Laser with Intermediate Level as Upper Laser Level


Rate equa3ons for Ns

Also

On solving for Nl and Nu

3- Level Laser with Intermediate Level as Upper Laser Level


All terms are constants physical proper3es of laser
material. However, li is a variable, indica3ng how
hard we are pumping the gain medium to achieve
popula3on inversion.

Highlights:

Ra3o of il/ iu to be as small as possible
(atoms goes to level u rather than back to level l)
ul should be small
(long lived u level is referred as metastable level)

The last point tends to confuse, dont we want radia3ve decay from u to l?

What can be gained by suppressing this component?

Decay from level u to level l is predominantly radia3ve, i.e.,

&
Inversion is produced if

3- Level Laser with Highest Level as Upper Laser Level


The steady-state equa3on keeping in mind with previous assump3on of thermal
equilibrium role.

Solving it for Nu and Nl gives:

3- Level Laser with Highest Level as Upper Laser Level


In order to have net gain, we require that

We are including degeneracy factors here, as this type of 3-level system is generally used for
gas lasers. All together, the condi3on for gain becomes:

In gases collisional decay processes are negligible compared to radia3ve decat due to much
lower atomic density in comparison to solids, hence


Thus we have

3- Level Laser with Highest Level as Upper Laser Level

Apparently, a popula3on inversion can be


obtained in this system if Alo is signicantly
greater than Auo, provided as well that ol is
not highly favoured over ou.

The rela3onship between Alo and Auo is quite
common. Recall from our discussion of
selec3on rules in chapter 4 that the laser
transi3ons is in most cases a dipole
transi3on, requiring that u and l have
opposite parity. If Alo is large, this implies that
l and o have opposite parity as well, meaning
that u and o have same parity- and this
means that Auo must be very small!!

In this case, we can rewrite the previous
equa3on in approximate form as

3- Level Laser with Highest Level as Upper Laser Level


For popula3on inversion:
High Alo/Aul
Low ol/ou
For example, if ol = ou then Alo must be greater than 2Aul (assuming
for simplicity that the degeneracy factors are equal). In any case, it
should be clear that a fast decay out of the lower laser level and high
pumping ux to the upper laser level are desirable.

We cannot force ol to be zero, because gas lasers must be
electrically pumped rather than op3cally pumped. With op3cal
pumping, we can tune the pumping frequency to exactly match the
energy dierence between u and o. in contrast, electrical pumping is
a broadband; the kine3c energy of the electrons follows a broad
sta3s3cal distribu3on; a signicant ou implies a signicant ol.

4- Level Laser
A 4-level laser is a combina3on of already
discussed two 3-level systems, see gure
For reasons iden3cal to those stated for 3-level
systems we neglect the upward excita3on
processes il, oi, lu, li and ui.
We can also neglect the decay processes il, lo,
and uo. The reasoning behind this simplica3on if
that the 4-level laser the generally used only with
solid-state laser materials, for which collisional
decay rates are inversely propor3onal to energy
separa3on.
ul = Aul
Note that levels l and o are generally very closely
spaced, so that lo and ol cannot be considered
negligible.

4- Level Laser
The steady-state rate equa3ons are wrisen as follows:

And because No = N- Ni Nu Nl, we can write:

Solving for the two levels of interest, we obtain

4- Level Laser
We thus nd the ra3o:

Assuming that gu = gl (solid-state lasers) we nd

Note as well that typically lo >> ul, since the energy


separa3on between l and 0 is very small. In that case,

We have used the Boltzmann rela3onship for the ra3o 0l/ l0.

Overall eect is that there is a rapid collisional decay (on the order of 10-13 s) from I
to u and from l to 0 this ensures that u is highly populated while level l is sparsely
populated (but not too sparselythe energy separa3on l0 is very small, so it would
be incorrect to assume Nl<< N0).

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