LASERS

The word LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated of Radiation. Laser was
invented by Theodore Maiman in 1960.

Interaction between energy levels and radiation

An atom can exist in its lowest energy state( or ground state) or in a higher energy
state(or excited state). There are three processes by which the atom can move from one of these
states to the other. They are i) stimulated absorption, ii) spontaneous emission and iii) stimulated
emission.

i) Stimulated absorption:
Consider an atom initially in the ground state of energy E1 . It can be raised to a higher

energy state E 2 by absorbing a photon of energy hv. hv E 2 E1 . This process is known as

stimulated absorption or induced absorption.

ii) Spontaneous emission:

Consider an atom initially in the excited state of energy E 2 .It is unstable and can exist in
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the excited state for a short time of about 10 s , after which the atom will move on its own to
the ground state E emitting a photon of energy hv.

hv E2 E1

This process is called spontaneous emission.

This process is not triggered by an external influence. The direction and phase of each such
photons is random.

iii) Stimulated emission:

Einstein in 1917 proposed that in addition to spontaneous emission, there could be
another type of emission known as stimulated emission.
Consider an atom initially in an excited state E 2 . According to Einstein, an electron in
the excited state may under the influence of another photon( hv E 2 E1 ), jump to a lower

energy state E1 , emitting an additional photon. This means that there are two photons instead of
one. In other words, the excited atom emits light waves in step with the incoming wave and
therefore increases the intensity. This is known as stimulated emission of radiation.

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Laser action: population inversion and optical pumping

At thermal equilibrium, the number of atoms of a substance in the ground state is more
than the number of atoms in the higher energy state. The number of atoms in a given energy
state of the substance is called population. Suppose by some means, the atoms are initially
excited so that there are more atoms in the higher energy state than in the lower energy state,
then the condition is known as population inversion.
The process of causing population inversion is called optical pumping. In this method
the material is illuminated with a light of frequency v such that hv E3 E1 . The atoms in the
ground state E1 jump to the excited state E 3 . The metastable of the atom is used for this
purpose.
Consider a material whose atoms can exist in three different energy states; ground state
( E1 ), metastable state ( E 2 ) and excited state ( E 3 ) as shown in the figure. An atom can remain
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in the excited state for 10 s and in the metastable state for 10 s .

Atoms in the ground state ( E1 ) are pumped to excited state ( E 3 ) by photons of

energy hv' E3 E1 . Since the life time of each atom in the excited state E 3 is very small, all
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the atoms in the excited state jump to metastable state ( E 2 ) after 10 s by spontaneous
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emission. The atoms in the metastable state can reside for a longer period of time 10 s than in
the excited state. Atoms reach metastable state E 2 much faster than they leave the state. This
results in population inversion. The atoms in the metastable state E 2 are now bombarded with

photons of energy hv E 2 E1 . This results in stimulated emission rise to an intense coherent

beam in the direction of incident photons. This is the method used in laser.

RUBY LASER:
The ruby laser was invented by Maiman in 1960.

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Construction: It consists of a single crystal rod of ruby in the shape of a cylindrical rod,
about0.5cm in diameter and 8cm in length. A ruby consists of crystals of aluminium oxide Al2 O3 in
which some of the chromium ions which gives the characteristic red colour. The two plane faces A & B
are highly polished. One end face A is highly silvered while the other end B is partially silvered . The
rod is surrounded by a tube through which cold water is circulated to extract the heat. The glass tube is
surrounded by a helical Xenon flash tube.

Working: The Xenon lamp emits light of Wavelength 5500A .This excites the chromium
ions from ground state to the excited state. The excited ions undergo nonradiative transitions to
3
the metastable state. The Metastable state has average life time of 3 10 s .Due to this, the
population inversion takes Place.
There will be some spontaneous transition from metastable state to ground state emitting
light of wavelength 6943A . This light is reflected back and forth between the silvered surfaces
of the rod AB. Only those photons moving parallel to the axis of the rod remain while others
escape from the side.
The photons which remain in the rod stimulate the emission of other photons. When the
beam becomes intense, it emerges from the end B.
The ruby laser does not give a continuous laser beam but in pulses.

Properties of Laser:
1) Laser light is highly monochromatic.
2) Laser light is highly directional, i.e. the laser beam does not diverge over a long
distance.
3) Laser light is highly coherent, i.e. the emitted waves are all in phase with one
another.
4) Laser light is extremely
intense and bright.
5) Laser light can be sharply
focused.

Applications of Laser:
Laser technology is used in
industry, surgery, scientific research,
communication etc. The following are
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some of the applications.

1) In industry, lasers are used for drilling, cutting, welding and heat treating.
2) In electronic industry, lasers are used for soldering, trimming and
photolithography.
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238
3) In nuclear science, lasers are used for isotopic separation (of U and U )
and to initiate fusion processes.
4) In the field of medicine, they are used in cataract surgery, brain surgery,
removal of birth marks, photocoagulation, angioplasty, spinal surgery,
destroying kidney stones and gall stones and to destroy cancer cells.
5) In dentistry, lasers are used to check decay in teeth and for drilling teeth
cavities.
6) In defense, lasers are used for ranging and guiding weapons to the intended
target.
7) In environmental studies, laser is a very useful tool for the measurement of
various atmospheric pollutants.
8) In consumer electronic industry, a low power laser beam is used to read the
barcode printed on the consumer items.
9) Lasers are used for the measurement of large distances based on pulse echo
technique known as LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging).
10) Lasers are used in laser printers.
11) Laser beams are used in precision surveying.
12) Lasers are widely used in to send telephone signals over long distances
through optical fibres.
13) Laser is used in making holograms (three dimensional images).
14) Lasers are used to play optical discs in audio/video systems.
15) Laser Doppler velocity meters are used for measuring the rate of flow of
fluids.

Photonics
Photonics is the technology for optical fibre communication to improve its performance and to
reduce its cost. Photonics deals with generation, propagation and detection of photons.
Currently, throughout the world, optical fibres are used for the transmission of voice, images and
digital data signals by light waves over hair-thin threads of glass or plastic. With the recent
availability of optical fibres, semiconducting light sources and detectors, the optical
communication technology is developing very rapidly.
Some of the inherent advantages of optical communication over the electrical cable
communication systems are:
1) low transmission losses
2) signal security
3) no effects of interference
4) large channel carrying capacity
The three essential components of an optical communication system are:
i. Optical source and modulator comprising LED and laser diodes.
ii. Optical fibre cable through which optical signal is transmitted.
iii. Optical signal detector such as a photodiode.

SCATTERING OF LIGHT
When light incident on a substance is radiated in all directions, then the phenomenon is called
scattering of light.
Light is scattered when it propagates in an optically inhomogeneous medium. There is no
scattering of light in an optically homogeneous medium.
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The scattering of light in optically inhomogeneous media containing foreign particles

whose dimensions are small( compared to wavelength of light) was investigated experimentally
by Tydnall. This scattering is sometimes referred to as Tyndall Effect. Theory of scattering was
developed by Rayleigh. Hence the phenomenon is also known as Rayleighs scattering.
According to Rayleigh theory, the intensity of light scattered by unit volume of the medium at
an angle to the direction of propagation of the incident light is given by

I a{N V2 / R2 4 }I (1 cos2 ) (1)

Where
V = volume(size) of the particles scattering light,
N = number of particles per unit volume of the medium,
R = distance from the scatterer at which scattered light is observed,
= wavelength of light,
I = intensity of the incident light and
a = factor which is measure of inhomogeneity.
For a homogeneous medium, a = 0.
Therefore, I 0 i.e light is not scattered.
It follows from equation (1) that the scattered intensity is inversely proportional to the
fourth power of wavelength of light, i.e. I 1/ when all other things are fixed. This is called
Rayleighs law of scattering.
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Coherent and incoherent scattering

If the scattered radiation has the same wavelength as that of the incident radiation, the
scattering is said to be coherent. During coherent scattering, there is no absorption of light
energy by the medium coherent scattering is also known as elastic scattering or Rayleighs
scattering.
If the scattered radiation has different wavelength than that of the incident radiation, then
the scattering is said to be incoherent. During incoherent scattering, the medium absorbs some
amount of incident light energy. Incoherent scattering is known as inelastic scattering or Stokes
scattering.

Blue colour of the sky and the sea

When white light from the sun enters the earths atmosphere, the scattering of different
colours(i.e wavelengths) takes place due to interaction with large number of very small
molecules in the earths atmosphere. Among the visible light, violet light is scattered most. It is
followed by indigo, blue, green, yellow etc. Red is scattered least. Although violet and indigo
are scattered more than blue, our eyes are not very sensitive to the former colours. Thus the blue
colour becomes the major colour when the sky is clear. Due to this fact, the sky is blue.
For similar reason, the sea also appears blue.

Reddish colour at sunset or sunrise:

The light from the sun at sunset or sunrise travels a longer distance through the earths
atmosphere to reach our eyes. This light is deprived of blue colour due to large scattering of blue
light by the particles present in atmosphere and rich in red colour. So the sun appears reddish at
sunset or sunrise because red colour is least scattered.

Clouds are generally white:

The clouds consist of dust particles and water droplets. Their size is very large compared to the
wavelength of the incident light from the sun. So there is very little scattering of light. Hence the
light which we receive from the clouds has all the colours of light. Therefore the clouds are
generally white.
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RAMAN EFFECT
The appearance of these additional frequencies in addition to the original frequency in
the scattered beam is known as raman effect.
Raman observed the scattered light by means of a spectrometer at right angle to the
incident monochromatic light passed through organic liquid like benzene.It was observed that a
number of new lines were present on both sides of the main line. The lines on the longer
wavelength side were large in number and more intense than the lines on the shorter wavelength
side. These lines are known as Raman lines and the spectrum formed is known as Raman
spectrum. The lines on the longer wavelengths side were termed as stokes lines while the shorter
wavelength lines were called antistokes lines.

Raman effect is not the case of fluorescence but the optical analog of Compton effect.

Explanation of Raman effect from Quantum theory:

According to Quantum theory, a beam of monochromatic light of frequency v has
photons. Each photon has an energy given by hv where h is the plancks constant. When such a
photon strikes a molecule of scatterer, three things may happen.
i) The molecule deviates the incident photon without absorbing its energy and hence unmodified
line in the scattered light appears.
ii) The molecule may absorb part of the light energy of the incident photon and hence give rise
to modified stokes line. The frequency of this line will obviously be less than the frequency of
the incident photon.
iii) The molecule may impart its own energy(being in excited state) to the incident photon and
hence gives rise to Anti-Stokes line, whose frequency is greater than the frequency of the
incident photon.

Applications of Raman effect:

Raman effect finds a number of important and interesting applications in many fields.
Some of them are as follows:
1) It is used in the study of the structure of molecules in solids, liquids and gases.
2) It is used to determine the binding forces in crystals.
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3) It is used to investigate the thermal state of liquids.

4) It is used in the study of certain aspects of nuclear physics such as nuclear spin and isotropic
constitution of the nucleus.
5) Raman effect is used in industries for studying the composition of mixtures and plastics.
6) Raman effect finds important applications in all the three branches of chemistry: organic,
inorganic and physical.

ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
Elementary particles are those particles which cannot be regarded as made up of something
else. Based on the response of the particles to strong and weak interactions, they are grouped as:
1) Leptons
2) Hadrons
1) Leptrons:
The particles that do not participate in the strong interaction are known as leptons.
The word lepton means light particle. Leptons include electrons, - mesons (muons) etc. They
have no observable size and no evidence of internal structure.
Following is the list of leptons
photon( )
electron ( e )
neutrino ( v )

muon ( )
ii) Hadrons:
The particles that participate in the strong interaction are known as hadrons. This
group includes most of the elementary particles. Hadrons are divided into 2 groups, namely:
Baryons and Mesons.

Baryons: proton( p

); neutron(n); lambda( ); sigma( 0 ) and omega( ).

Mesons: Pions( , , 0 ), Kaons( K , K , K1, K 2 ) and eta( 0 )

The classical laws of conserving energy, linear momentum, angular momentum and electric
charge are valid for elementary particles also. In addition to all these, baryons and leptons follow
conservation laws.

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BETA DECAY
-decay is the phenomenon of emission of an electron from a radioactive nucleus.

When a parent nucleus emits a -particle, the mass remains the same but atomic number
increases by one unit. An example of -emission is
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Th 234

pa 234 1e0 Q

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In general
A
Z1YA 1e0 Q
ZX
Where Q is the energy released in -decay.
The figure is the energy spectrum. Experiment facts
show that particles on the average
carry 1/3rd of the disintegration energy left out by the
daughter nucleus. There is no evidence for what happened
to 2/3rd of the energy. Thus, the law of conservation of
energy is violated in -decay.
In -disintegration, the residual nucleus does not
move exactly opposite to the -particle. Hence, the law of
conservation of linear momentum is violated.
A -particle has a spin of (1/2)(h/2). In -decay, the spin of the nucleus must change by
(1/2)(h/2) but what has been observed experimentally is that the spin of the nucleus does not
change or will change by 1 (h/2). Thus, the law of conservation of angular momentum is
also violated in -decay.

Neutrino Hypothesis :
The violations of the laws of conservation of energy, linear momentum and angular momentum were
resolved by pauli in 1931. He proposed a new theory in which it was assumed that - decay is always
accompanied by another particle. This particle has zero rest mass, zero charge, energy and has a spin
of (1/2)(h/2). This new particle was called neutrino(). Another type of neutrino called antineutrino differs from neutrino in spin direction only. Neutrino() is entitled with positron (
particle) and anti-neutrino() is emitted with electron( particle).
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Quarks:
In 1964, Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig proposed the Quark model to explain the
internal structure of Hadrons. Just as the structure of atoms was explained by combining
electrons and nuclei, the structure of Hadrons were explained by combining Quarks. According
to Quark model, hadrons are built up by a limited number of fundamental units called Quarks.
The original model of quarks contained the existence of 3 quarks (and their antiquarks). They
were called upquark (U), downquark (D) and strangequark(S).
The charge of U, D and S quarks are respectively +2(e/3), -1(e/3) and -1(e/3).
Each quark has an anti-quark associated with it. They are U, D and S.
A proton may be assumed to be made up of two upquarks and one downquark.
Charge = 2(e/3) + 2(e/3) 1(e/3) = e
A neutron may be assumed to be made up of one upquark and 2 downquarks.
Charge = 2(e/3) 1(e/3) 1(e/3) = 0
In the years between 1966 to 1977, 3 more quarks were discovered. The current view is that the
universe is made up of 6 quarks, 6 leptons and 12 exchange particles. Therefore, the total
number of building blocks is 24.

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