Laser Stimulation

by

Danish , Junaid Azhar

THESIS Presented to the Faculty Physics Deppt Kohat University of Science and Technology for the Degree of

BACHLORS OF SCIENCE B.S(HONS)

April,2011

Acknowledgements
First of all, we thank to the Almighty ALLAH, for giving us the strength and power to do this project report. Secondly, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to our advisor Sir Saqib Sareef lecturer Physics Department KUST, for his continuous support , patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge to help us complete this report in time. His guidance helped us all the time of research and writing of this thesis. We could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for our report writing. Besides our advisor, I would like to thank one of my special friend living abroad for continuous support and encouragement. Also thanks to Sir Abeer lecturer Engineering Department Kust for helping us occasionally specially in Matlab.

Last but not the least,our deepest gratitude goes to our parents for assisting us with moral as well as nancial support .

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Table of Contents
Page Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Laser Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Power Of Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time Variation of Output Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 4 5 6 6 7 8 9 9 10 12 12 12 13 14 14 16 17 17 18 ii iii

Femto-Second Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6.1 1.6.2 1.6.3 1.6.4 Step one: Some transient properties of lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step two: Generation of laser pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step three: The idea of Q-Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step four: The idea of Mode Locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.7 1.8 1.9

LASER EFFICIENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laser Wavelengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Applications Of Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.9.1 1.9.2 1.9.3 Lasers in the Medical Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lasers and Electronics: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lasers and Entertainment: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 LASER OPTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Geometrical optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 2.1.2 Reections; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Refraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6

Physical Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Modern optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NONLINEAR OPTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kerr eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Special cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.1 2.6.2 Kerr electro-optic eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 19 20 21 21 22 22 22 26 27 27 31

Optical Kerr eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.7

Self-phase modulation (SPM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 Numerical Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 3.2 Matlab: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plotting of Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix

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Chapter 1 Introduction
The early development in solid state technology and optics lead the invention of Lasers, a highly directional and focused beam of electromagnetic waves. Because of some unique features they nd a wind range of applications. The Lasers based devices like Laser pointers, Jet printers, Barcode readers, Laser lighting displays, Scanners, Compact Disk Players, Laser alignment and line level devices etc are commonly used and are available in market. Such devices are relatively low powered (ranging in mW). Some Lasers play a vital role in the eld of telecommunication, material processing, manufacturing and perhaps found the most benecial and useful applications in the eld of medicine where it is used in soft tissue surgery, Laser Ulcer Removal, and dentistry etc. Before 1960.the research area was not vast enough. Then in early 60s the technology become advanced and new research area were introduced. The development in research area and new technology lead the basis of invention of Lasers and its types. Lasers are used in many things that we come across in our daily lives. Because lasers have the property of being highly directional and focused, they nd many types of applications. High power laser have wide range of application in the eld of telecommunication, medicine and manufacturing. Semi conductor laser are widely use in many things because of their low cost, small size and high eciency. High-brightness lasers are used in the bers which provide pumping for the amplication. Lasers have perhaps found the most benecial and useful applications in the eld of medicine. Laser devices are used in soft tissue surgery and dentistry for cutting. Other uses of laser are as Laser Eye Surgery, Laser Ulcer Removal, and Lasers to remove Port Wine Stains etc. Many electronic devices use dierent types of lasers for their working. Some of these are Compact Disk Players, Supermarket Scanners

etc. Current world is facing energy crises. As laser is used in many elds but still there were many elds where high energy were required like laser fusion etc. That problem was solved by introducing the ultra short lasers. An inspiring thing in laser processing is the application of ultra-short pulsed lasers .Understanding the propagation of ultra short laser pulses is very important for both scientic and technological applications. The ultra short pulse helps to explore physical phenomena with unprecedented time resolution. The potential of ultra short laser in medical eld is has been known for some time. Ultra short laser pulse is used in treatment of cancer patient. A therapy called Photodynamic therapy uses ultra short laser pulse which kills the cancer cells. Ultra short laser pulse is used for Cutting, blasting, and welding because the beam is very intense, accurate and precise. Ultra short laser produce the high intensity level which creates strong nonlinear light-mater interaction that lead to new optical phenomena like generation of coherent white light (white light lasers). The advent of commercially available ultra short lasers has triggered a wealth of new technologies, such as micromachining with ultra short pulses, multi photon imaging techniques. Existing technologies has also been improved due to ultra short laser. One of the properties of the ultra short laser pulse is Kerr eect. We explain the Kerr eect of ultra short laser pulse in the method called numerical simulation. For this we made m le in technical computing language called Matlab in which we made m le using function syntax with proper name. We used Matlab to simulate ultra short laser pulse. Since applications of laser radiation has well dened phase and amplitude, the analysis of such radiation in components and systems requires special care in optical procedures and microwave techniques. In order to demonstrate the applications of these fundamental principles, analytical techniques and specic example is given.

1.1

Laser

A laser is not a word in itself but is stands for Light Amplication by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Laser is a device which produces and amplies light. Lasers continue to be an amazingly robust eld of activity, Laser light is very pure in color, it can be extremely intense. It can be directed with great accuracy. The emitted laser light is a spatially coherent, narrow beam. Laser light is generally a narrow-wavelength electromagnetic spectrum monochromatic light. The laser is at the heart of the revolution that is marrying photonic and electronic devices. In the past four decades, the laser has become an invaluable tool for mankind encompassing such diverse applications as science, engineering, communications, manufacturing and materials processing, medical therapeutics, entertainment and displays, data storage and processing, environmental sensing, military, energy, and metrology. Laser action occurs in all states of matter-solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. The wavelength of a given laser can be extended to longer and shorter wavelengths, thus enlarging its spectral coverage. (1) Before the Laser there was the Maser. In 1954, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invented the maser (Microwave Amplication by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), using ammonia gas and microwave radiation. Maser is a device operating on similar principles to the laser but amplifying microwave radiation, rather than infrared or visible radiations the maser was used to amplify radio signals and as an ultra sensitive detector for space research. (1) Many dierent materials can be used as lasers. Some, like the ruby laser, emit short pulses of laser light. Others, like helium-neon gas lasers or liquid dye lasers emit a continuous beam of light. (3) In 1960, Theodore Maiman invented the ruby laser which is considered to be the rst successful light laser. Gordon Gould was the rst person to use the word laser. Gordon Gould made the rst light laser. Gould was a doctoral student at Columbia University under Charles Townes, the inventor of the maser. Gordon Gould was inspired to build his optical laser starting in 1958.The rst gas laser (helium neon) was invented by

Ali Javan in 1960. The gas laser was the rst continuous-light laser and the rst to operate on the principle of converting electrical energy to a laser light output. It has been used in many practical applications. In 1962, Robert Hall created a revolutionary type of laser that is still used in many of the electronic appliances and communications systems that we use every day. In 1964 the carbon dioxide laser was invented by Kumar Patel. (1)

1.2

Design

Figure 1.1: Principal components: 1. Gain medium 2. Laser pumping energy 3. High reector 4. Output coupler 5. Laser beam

A laser consists of a gain medium inside a highly reective optical cavity, as well as a means to supply energy to the gain medium. The gain medium is a material with properties that allow it to amplify light by stimulated emission. In its simplest form, a cavity consists of two mirrors arranged such that light bounces back and forth, each time passing through the gain medium. Typically one of the two mirrors, the output coupler, is partially transparent. The output laser beam is emitted through this mirror. Light of a specic wavelength that passes through the gain medium is amplied (increases 4

in power); the surrounding mirrors ensure that most of the light makes many passes through the gain medium, being amplied repeatedly. Part of the light that is between the mirrors (that is, within the cavity) passes through the partially transparent mirror and escapes as a beam of light.The process of supplying the energy required for the amplication is called pumping. The energy is typically supplied as an electrical current or as light at a dierent wavelength. Such light may be provided by a ash lamp or perhaps another laser. Most practical lasers contain additional elements that aect properties such as the wavelength of the emitted light and the shape of the beam (6).

1.3

How Laser Works

L indicates Light. The laser is a kind of beam that utilizes the force of light and directs this light for its power. The light comes from Stimulation. Atoms are made of electrons, which in turn have a very interesting property. When these electrons are excited, they become elevated to a state that is much higher than their relaxed state. At this state, the electrons release their excess energy by giving o a photon (particle) of light, and then go back to their normal state. Thus, it follows that if many electrons are charged up at once, they will collectively release many photons, which means a lot of light energy. The electron gets exited by Simulation (S). If the electrons of a particular substance are stimulated by light, they will get charged up and release photons of the same color. This release of light energy is known as Emission (E). The entire process of the stimulated emission of the photons is known as Radiation (R).When this process is carried out in a controlled environment, with the use of mirrors and lenses to collect the released photons and emit them in one direction, in a single powerful line, a LASER is nally born. Thus, a laser is created from light, and the resulting laser light has special properties that are very dierent and unique from regular light. A laser can be of dierent types and strengths. A laser can be very tiny so as to be almost invisible, and can be very large so as to occupy an entire room. (5)

1.4

Power Of Laser

Beam power measures the amount of energy a laser beam delivers per unit time. Power = Energy / Time Power in a laser beam normally is measured in watts, which is the amount of energy owing through the beam. One watt equals energy ow of one joule per second. The powers of steady laser beams range from less than a milli watt (0.001 watt) to kilowatts (thousands of watts), but instantaneous power can be much higher in brief intervals. No single laser emits across that entire range of power, and many types of lasers cannot be scaled away from milli watt or watt levels. The beam power means the total power in the whole beam, not the power per unit area. Normally, laser power refers to the power in the laser beam. However, there in fact are two separate levels of laser power.

1).The intracavity power that circulates within the laser resonator. 2).The power in the beam itself.

1.5

Time Variation of Output Power

Lasers may produce pulses or continuous beams, but some types can only produce pulsed beams. Pulses vary in length, normally from milliseconds (10 3second) to femtosecond (10 15second). Normally, pulses are repeated at a stable rate, ranging from once a tiny to billions of times a second. The repetition rate is often given in the units of hertz, or pulses per second. The immediate power is the rate of energy emission, which rises and falls during a pulse. Short pulses focus energy in time, so the peak power in a pulse can be very high although the total amount of energy remains reserved. For example, if a pulse delivers 10 mill joules of energy in 10 femto seconds, average power during the pulse is 1012 watts, or 1 terawatt. Some lasers naturally operate in a pulsed mode. Time variation of

laser output is very important both for communicating information and for controlling how the laser beam interacts with materials (4)

1.6

Femto-Second Lasers

Laser material processing relies on laser systems of desired properties. An inspiring thing in laser processing is the application of ultra-short pulsed lasers. We know that laser energy is very intense, normally when we use lasers to machine the material, the material experience phase transitions, from solid state to liquid state then to gaseous state. If the laser beam is of suciently high energy, materials can be ablated, i.e., change to gas sate directly from solid state. The accompanying high temperature generates Heat Aected Zone (HAZ), which is the source of many undesired machining properties, such as poor surface nish, internal remaining stress, etc. This problem becomes even more serious for high-energy conditions. If we can use high-energy laser beam pulses, we may reduce the negative eects of heat aected zone by reducing the interacting time. An ideal condition is that only the material to be removed absorbs the incident high intensity laser energy, the other parts experience little inuence. This ideal condition is almost reached by ultra-short pulsed lasers. M. D. Shirk gave a review of this area. With the help of chirped pulsed amplication (CPA) and pulse compressor techniques, The Ti:sapphire laser (735nm-1035nm) and excimer-dye laser (220nm-300nm, 380nm-760nm), can oer pulse width in the femtosecond (10-15 second) range and pulse energy up to 125 mJ and 15 mJ respectively, the maximum focused intensities are currently around 1019 W/cm2. It has been observed that ultra-short high energy laser pulses oer many advantages. These include: Precise ablation of materials without signicant heat aected zone. Ablation of very wide range of materials (metals, polymers, ceramics, highly reective materials, etc.), little plasma absorption eects thus improved ablation eciency,

little redeposition, etc. Laser system for generating ultra-short pulses is relatively complex. Lets study it step by step: Steps for producing ultra short pulse

1. Some transient properties of lasers. 2. Generation of laser pulses. 3. The idea of Q-Switching. 4. The idea of Mode Locking

1.6.1

Step one: Some transient properties of lasers

When the threshold population inversion is reached, lasers can be generated. First the active medium are pumped to build up population inversion, in the mean time atoms at excited state can change back to normal state by relaxation, spontaneous emission and stimulated emission, photons mainly come from the stimulated emission. Before the threshold population inversion is reached, there is only a very small number of oscillating photons in the cavity; because once they are generated they are soon attenuated. When the threshold population inversion is reached and grows up, oscillating photons start building up, until they reach the steady state value. Then the stimulated emission becomes dominant over pumping, the population inversion decreases. The photon number reaches the maximum value when the population inversion decreases to the critical value. This decrease continues, it becomes so low that the photon number decreases soon. When the photon number decreases to a certain value, the pumping process becomes dominant again, the population inversion starts increasing again, when it reaches the critical value, the photon number starts building up, a new cycle begins. So it is the balance between the pumping process and stimulated emission etc. that decide the transient properties. 8

1.6.2

Step two: Generation of laser pulses

If the pumping is stopped for a certain period of time after the population inversion reaches a value above threshold, the photon pulse duration time will be much short because of the stop of pumping. This is indeed a feasible way of making laser pulses which is called Gain Switching, any laser can in principle be gain switched in this way. We have two objectives;

Make the pulses ultra-short. Make the pulses to have high energy. To obtain high energy, the population inversion should be big enough, far beyond the value of critical value. This can be realized by rst letting the energy accumulate to a very high value, then letting it out all of sudden. Following this idea, methods called Q-Switching and mode locking are developed.

1.6.3

Step three: The idea of Q-Switching

Q here means the quality of the laser cavity. If we destroy the normal lasing condition for some time and in the same time pump the active medium, without stimulated emission which is the decreasing factor, the population inversion can reach much higher value than the normal saturated value. During this period the cavity is of very high loss, Q is very low. Then we recover the normal lasing condition, i.e., turn Q to very high value very quickly, accumulated energy in the excited atoms gives o very quickly, photons then reaches peak value and deplete the population inversion to values below the threshold. Through this way, the laser pulses are generated with high energy. The key thing here is to use suitable mechanism to switch the laser cavity Q. Q-Switching is commonly achieved by the following methods: Rotating Prisms: This is the most common mechanical means for Q-Switching. The prism acts as a reecting

mirror of the laser cavity, we turn the prism out of the position of oscillation to decrease the cavity Q, when the population is build up, rotate it back to generate the pulse. This method is simple and inexpensive and can be used for any wavelength. But they are limited by the speed of rotating. The above method is not good enough for generating ultra-short high power pulses. The pulse duration is longer than ns level. If we want the pulse duration to be even shorter, mode locking should be used. With mode locking and other advanced techniques, we can generate pulses with durations from ps to fs level (10-12 10-15 second).

1.6.4

Step four: The idea of Mode Locking

It is a technique by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (1012 s) or femtoseconds (1015 s). If the number of modes locked is bigger then the pulse will be sharper .Although single mode oscillation for a laser system is desired for some cases, multi-modes oscillation has the advantage of possible high output power. If we can transform the high energy into the form of ultra-short pulses, we realize both objectives. ultra short pulse and high peak energy. Mode locking does this for us. If we can lock the mode to make the modes have xed phase correlation, we can generate sharp pulses with high peak energy. Mode locking methods are also divided into 2 methods; 1. Active method. 2. Passive Method. Active method Active mode locking includes Amplitude Modulator (AM) mode locking, Frequency Modulator (FM) mode locking and Synchronous Pumping mode locking, etc. We only discuss AM mode locking here, since they most widely used. For AM mode locking, we insert an AM modulator into the cavity. This modulator adjusts 10

the cavity loss. The cavity loss is very high for some time, light waves with certain phases during this period are attenuated, and there is no laser output. Then the cavity loss is very low for some time, light waves with certain phases can oscillate in the cavity. The AM modulator period equals the cavity round trip time, in this way the AM modulator locked the modes. AM modulator can be realized by a Pockels cell modulator, or an acousto-optic modulator, etc.

Passive Mode Locking; It can be realized by fast saturable absorber modulator, slow saturable absorber modulator, Kerr lens mode locking modulator, etc. We introduce Kerr lens mode locking here. Optical materials like quartz or sapphire have non-linear refractive indexes when suciently high intensity light is passing through, N = N1 + N2 Where N2 is a positive number, I is the incident light intensity. If the beam is of Gaussian transverse prole, the material has bigger refractive index in the center where the light is stronger, while in the wings of the beam the index is smaller, so the material acts just like a lens, the beam will be focused. We put a suitable sized aperture behind the Kerr optical material, when the light intensity is not big enough, the focus eect is not obvious, and dispersion loss is huge, when the light intensity is strong. The beam is well focused into the aperture and passes through. When we place this device correctly in the cavity, mode locking happens. Kerr lens eect is very fast, it can be taken as instantaneous. The fastest mode locked pulses are achieved by this technique using ultra-broadband gain media. (1.1)

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1.7

LASER EFFICIENCY

Lasers do not produce energy. They convert energy from other forms into light. The efciency of that energy exchange is important. The more ne importance is that waste energy winds up as heat that the laser must disperse, a particular problem for both highpower operation and useless lasers. Laser eciency can be measured in several ways. For practical purposes, the most useful measurement generally is the overall or wall-plug eciency, the fraction of the energy delivered to the laser (through the wall plug) that emerges in the laser beam. That overall eciency, in turn, depends on a number of other eciency terms. We will start by looking at overall eciency, then turn to its components, and nally mention a few cases in which other measures of eciency are more important.(4)

1.8

Laser Wavelengths

The wavelength emitted by a laser depends both on the laser material and the design of the laser cavity. The range of possible wavelengths depends on the material, with the optical design of the laser selecting which wavelengths can be emitted. Most lasers are called monochromatic (single-colored) and actually emit at a narrow range of wavelengths at any one time. However, some can be operated across a range of wavelengths, as shown in Table 1. Range depends on the type of laser. In some cases, the specic composition of the laser material or the design of the optics limits the laser to a narrow range of wavelengths. In other cases, the laser can emit across much or all of the range with suitable optics. (4).

1.9

Applications Of Laser

The laser is indeed a very useful and exciting invention, it have many benecial applications and uses. Lasers are used in many things that we come across in our daily lives. Because 12

lasers have the property of being highly directional and focused, they nd many types of applications. Here are some of the many uses of lasers. (7)

1.9.1

Lasers in the Medical Field

Lasers have perhaps found the most benecial and useful applications in the eld of medicine. These uses include: Laser Eye Surgery Lasers are very useful in treating far sightedness and cataracts, among other eye surgeries. Because the laser beam is so minute and intense, it can burn through a very small amount of eye tissue. By focusing the laser on the point of tissue that is damaged, it can easily be corrected without damaging surrounding tissue that is in good condition. Without lasers, it would have been dicult to reach such hard to access areas and treat eye proble. Laser Ulcer Removal: Ulcers in the stomach can e very eectively removed with lasers. The laser beam used as a scalpel, is capable of making a tiny incision to reach the ulcer. Because of the burning action of lasers, the cut is also clotted and sealed immediately. The loss of blood is thus very minimal, and recuperation is also faster with laser ulcer surgery. Lasers to remove Port Wine Stains: Many people have an accumulation of red blood cells just under their skin, which results in red marks, called port wine stains. Laser surgery is very eective in removing these marks, without damaging the outer skin surface and the surrounding blood cells. (8)

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1.9.2

Lasers and Electronics:

Many electronic devices use dierent types of lasers for their working. Some of these are: Compact Disk Players: Compact disks have music information stored on them, which is read inside the CD player, thus enabling you to hear music. All CD players contain a tiny laser, its job is to read the digital codes of information and translate them into rocking music. Supermarket Scanners: When you are checking out your purchases in the supermarket, all these purchases are scanned by a device, for pricing and other information. These scanners contain a laser, which reads the information on the barcode of the product and enables the items to be checked and totaled by the computer. (7)

1.9.3

Lasers and Entertainment:

Lasers are increasingly being used as a means to entertain people. Laser Shows: Dierent sizes, types, and colors of lasers are used in combination with each other, to create patterns, gures, pictures, and designs that make up many kinds of laser shows. This form of art is very beautiful and looks almost magical. Such laser shows are typically held in domes where the laser beam can be seen most eectively. Class 1 type of laser is typically used as these have no harmful eects on contact. (7). IV. Other Uses of Lasers: In addition to the above, lasers are used for various other applications. Laser ber optics used by computers and the internet for transferring information and data. Cutting, blasting, and welding with the help of intense laser beams. Laser is used for these purposes as the laser beam is very accurate and precise, as well as being sharp and intense. We use

14

lasers for measuring distances. Lasers used in Video CDs. Thus, as is evident from the above, lasers are used in practically all areas of our lives (7).

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Chapter 2 LASER OPTICS

Laser is an EM radiation so optics plays an important role in eld of lasers. The word optics comes from the ancient Greek word, which means appearance or look. Optics originates with the development of lenses by the ancient Egyptians. Some years later, Euclid wrote a book named Optics. In this book he described the mathematical rules of perspective and describes the eects of refraction qualitatively. In the Middle age, Muslims extended the idea of GREEKS. Some Muslim scientists who worked on optics are Al-Kindi, Ibn Sahl, and Ibn al-Haytham.The rst Muslim scientist who worked on OPTICS was Al-Kindi. Then in 984, Ibn Sahl who was the Persian mathematician wrote the book named On burning mirrors and lenses, in which he explained a law of refraction equivalent to Snells law. He used this law of refraction to compute optimum shapes for curved mirrors lenses. Then in the early 11th century, Ibn al-Haytham wrote a book of Optics, in this book he explained the phenomena of vision. In the mid 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes, wrote a book from which Optical theory was progressed .In this book he explained many optical phenomena including reection and refraction. He assumed that light was emitted by objects which produced it. In 1704, Newton published a book named Opticks and, at the time, Till early 19th century Newtonian optics was accepted. Then Thomas Young and Augustin-Jean Fresnel performed many experiments on the interference of light which showed lights wave nature. Youngs performed an experiment named double slit experiment which showed that light obeys the law of superposition, which is a wave-like property and this was not explained by Newtons corpuscle theory. This work led to a theory of diraction for light and opened an entire area of study in physical optics. In 1905, Einstein published the famous theory

16

of the photoelectric eect that explained the quantization of light itself. In 1913, Niels Bohr showed that atoms could only emit discrete amounts of energy, so he explained the discrete lines seen in absorption spectra and emission .The understanding of the interaction between light and matter, formed the basis of quantum optics With the invention of the maser in 1953 and the laser in 1960, Quantum optics gained practical importance.(10)

2.1

Geometrical optics

Geometrical optic describes the light propagation in term of RAYS so it is also called Ray optics. In geometric optics the ray is an instrument which is used to predict the path of light. Geometric optics is used to describe the geometrical aspects of image...

2.1.1

Reections;

Reection can be simply dened as the bounce back of rays from the polished surface. Reections are divided into two types.

Figure 2.1: Diagram of specular reection

17

Specular reection describes the gloss of surfaces like mirror, in which light is reected in a simple way. In the Specular reection the direction of the reected wave is nd by the angle which is between incident ray and normal surface. The incident and reected rays and the normal lie in single plane. Diuse Reection describe opaque materials such as paper or rock. The reection from this surface can be described only if their microscopic structure is known. (11)

2.1.2

Refraction

Bending of light is called refraction. It is change in direction of wave due to the change in its speed. Let us consider the simplest case of refraction. Let we have two medium one is

Figure 2.2: Snells Law for the case n1 < n2, such as air/water interface uniform and the other is not uniform. Refraction occurs when there is interface between a uniform medium whose index of refraction is n1 and another medium whose index of refraction is n2.In such situations, in this situation Snells Law describes the resulting deection of the light ray by the equation n1 sin 1 = n2 sin 2

18

1 is the angle of incidence and 2 is the angle of refraction When speed of light is changing then the Snells Law can be represented as v1 sin 2 = v2 sin 1 v1 and v2 are the wave velocities through the respective media.(11)

2.2

Physical Optics

It is that branch of optics in which we study interference, diraction and polarization. Physical optics is also called Wave optics. Physical optics is based on the Huygenss principle. This principle states that on an advancing wave front every point is the center of new disturbance. It also explains that how optical phenomena is manifested when there are multiple sources which are at a distance similar to the wavelength of the light Optical scientist can used numerical modeling with the help of which they can simulate the propagation of light for diraction, interference and polarization eects. But numerical modeling is used to solve only small scale problems.(12)

2.3

Modern optics

Modern Optics covers most of the areas of optical sciences and engineering. Modern optics becomes popular since 20th century. In optical sciences we study the electromagnetic and quantum properties of light. One of the major subeld of optical sciences is QUANTUM OPTICS in which we study about the quantum mechanical properties of light. Some modern devices like lasers, photomultiplier, electron image sensors, light emitting diodes, photovoltaic cells etc, their principle of operation depend on quantum mechanics. The optical research includes the study that how light interacts with specic materials as in crystal optics. Also in optical research we study about other phenomena of electromagnetic waves as in nonlinear optic, statistical optics, photonic optics etc. (12)

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2.4

NONLINEAR OPTICS

Nonlinear eect such has been observed since 19th century. In nonlinear eect the light induces as it propagates through the medium. This nonlinearity is typically only observed at very high light intensities such as those provided by pulsed lasers. Nonlinear optical phenomena are being studied and applied over a wide range of energies and powers, from single-photons to petawatts, and over broad spectral regimes. Nonlinear optics describe light behavior in a nonlinear medium, in such a medium there is nonlinear response of dielectric polarization p to electric eld E of light. At high intensity the nonlinearity is observed typically provided by pulsed laser. The branch of study related with the interaction of electromagnetic radiation and matter in which the matter shows a nonlinear behavior to the incident radiation elds. The nonlinear response can result in intensity-dependent variation of the propagation characteristics of the radiation elds or in the creation of radiation elds that propagate at new frequencies or in new directions. Nonlinear eects can be seen in solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas, and may involve one or more electromagnetic elds as well as internal excitations of the medium. The work done in the eld has made use of the high powers available from lasers. The wavelength range of interest generally extends from the far-infrared to the vacuum ultraviolet, but some nonlinear interactions have been observed at wavelengths extending from the microwave to the x-ray ranges.(14) Nonlinear optics gives rise to many optical phenomena like Second harmonic generation (generation of light with a doubled frequency), Third harmonic generation (generation of light with a tripled frequency, High harmonic generation(generation of light with frequencies much greater than the original and Sum frequency generation (generation of light with a frequency that is the sum of two other frequencies )(17)

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2.5

Kerr eect

The Kerr eect, also called the quadratic electro-optic eect. It is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to an applied electric eld. In Kerr eect the induced index change is directly proportional to the square of the electric eld instead of varying linearly with it. All materials show a Kerr eect, but certain liquids display it more strongly than others. The Kerr eect was discovered in 1875 by John Kerr, a Scottish physicist. The magneto-optic Kerr eect is the phenomenon that the light reected from a magnetized material has a slightly rotated plane of polarization. It is similar to the Faraday Eect where the plane of polarization of the transmitted light is rotated.(13) For a nonlinear material, the electric polarization eld P will depend on the electric eld E: P = Where
0 (1) 0

:E+

(1) 0

: EE +

(3) 0

: EEE + ......

is the vacuum permittivity and (n) is the n-th order component of the electric

susceptibility of the medium. The symbol represents the scalar product between matrices In the optical or AC Kerr eect, an intense beam of light in a medium can itself provide the modulating electric eld, without the need for an external eld to be applied. In this case, the electric eld is given by: E = E cos(t) Where E is the amplitude of the wave as before.(18)

2.6

Special cases

Two special cases of the Kerr eect are normally considered, 1. Kerr electro-optic eect, or DC Kerr eect, 2. The optical Kerr eect, or AC Kerr eect. 21

2.6.1

Kerr electro-optic eect

The Kerr electro-optic eect, or DC Kerr eect, is the special case in which a slowly varying external electric eld is applied by a voltage on electrodes across the sample material. The dierence in index of refraction, n is given by n = KE 2 (2.1)

Where is the wavelength of the light, K is the Kerr constant, and E is the strength of the electric eld. (13)

2.6.2

Optical Kerr eect

The optical Kerr eect or AC Kerr eect is the case in which the electric eld is due to the light itself. This causes a variation in index of refraction which is proportional to the local irradiance of the light. This refractive index variation is responsible for the nonlinear optical eects of self-focusing self-phase modulation. This eect only becomes signicant with very intense beams such as those from lasers (13).

2.7

Self-phase modulation (SPM)

It is a non-linear eect of light-matter interaction. When an ultrashort pulse of light travels in a medium, it will induce a varying refractive index of the medium due to optical Kerr eect. This variation in refractive index will produce a phase shift in the pulse. And due to this phase shift of pulse pulses frequency spectrum is changed. Self-phase modulation is an important eect in optical systems which use intense pulse of light such as laser and optical ber communication systems. Self-phase modulation has important eects in modelocked femtosecond lasers. It results mainly from the Kerr nonlinearity of the gain medium, although for very long laser resonators even the Kerr nonlinearity of air can be relevant. Without dispersion, the nonlinear phase shifts can be so strong that stable operation is no longer possible. In that case, soliton mode locking is a good solution, where a balance of 22

self-phase modulation and dispersion is utilized, similar to the situation of solitons in bers Consider the following gure. A pulse (top curve) propagating through a nonlinear medium

Figure 2.3: Frequency vs Time and Intensity vs Time curves undergoes a self-frequency shift (bottom curve) due to self-phase modulation. The front of the pulse is shifted to lower frequencies, the back to higher frequencies. In the centre of the pulse the frequency shift is approximately linear. For an ultrashort pulse with a constant phase, the intensity at time t is given by I (t): t2 I(t) = Io exp( 2 ) Where Io is the peak intensity and is half the pulse duration. If the pulse is traveling in a medium, then the optical Kerr eect produces a refractive (2.2)

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index change with intensity: n(I) = no + n2 .I (2.3)

Where no is the linear refractive index, n2 is the second-order nonlinear refractive index of the medium. (15) As the pulse propagates, the intensity at any one point in the medium rises and then falls as the pulse goes past. This will produce a time-varying refractive index: dn(I) dI 2t t2 = n2 = n2 .Io . 2 . exp( 2 ) dt dt (2.4)

This variation in refractive index produces a shift in the instantaneous phase of the pulse (t) = o t 2 .n(I)L o (2.5)

Where o and 0 are the carrier frequency and (vacuum) wavelength of the pulse, and L is the distance the pulse has propagated. The phase shift results in a frequency shift of the pulse. The instantaneous frequency (t) is given by: (t) = d(t) 2L dn(t) = o dt o dt (2.6)

And from the equation for dn/dt above, this is: (t) = o + 4Ln2 Io t2 .t. exp 2 o 2 (2.7)

It is clear that the extra frequencies generated through SPM broaden the frequency spectrum of the pulse symmetrically. In the time domain, the envelope of the pulse is not changed, however in any real medium the eects of dispersion will simultaneously act on the pulse Consider another gure.

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Figure 2.4: In the above graph in the regions of normal dispersion, the redder portions of the pulse have a higher velocity than the blue portions, and thus the front of the pulse moves faster than the back, broadening the pulse in time. In regions of anomalous dispersion, the opposite is true, and the pulse is compressed temporally and becomes shorter. This eect can be exploited to some degree to produce ultrashort pulse compression. A similar analysis can be carried out for any pulse shape.

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Chapter 3 Numerical Simulation

Simulation includes all methods that can reproduce the processes of a system in an analog or digital fashion. It includes numerical simulations, and simulations quite dierent from numerical simulations. Numerical simulation is the kind of simulation that uses numerical methods to quantitatively represent the evolution of a physical system. It pays much attention to the physical content of the simulation and emphasizes the goal that, from the numerical results of the simulation, knowledge of background processes and physical understanding of the simulation region can be obtained. In practice, numerical simulation uses the values that can best represent the real environment. The evolution of the system also strictly obeys the physical laws that govern the real physical processes in the simulation region. Then the result of such simulation can have a good representation of the real environment. From the result of such simulation we can safely draw proper conclusions and have a better understanding of the system.(19) In today networked world the quantity of generated information is growing at very ever increasing pace. Now-a-days there are several languages and tools for dening an arbitrary knowledge domain. MATLAB is interactive program that can help us with the scientic and engineering numeric calculations. It has become the most widely used software package in academia and industry for modeling and simulating dynamical systems. The name MATLAB stands for MATrix LABoratory. MATLAB is a high-performance language for technical computing. It integrates computation, visualization, and programming in an easy-to-use environment where problems and solutions are expressed in familiar mathematical notation. Typical uses include Math and computation. Algorithm development, Modeling, simulation, and prototyping, Data analysis, exploration, and visualization and Scientic and engineering graphics. MATLAB is an

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interactive system whose basic data element is an array that does not require dimensioning. This allows us to solve many technical computing problems, especially those with matrix and vector formulations, in a fraction of the time it would take to write a program in a scalar non interactive language (20).

3.1

Matlab:

MATLAB is interactive program that can help us with the scientic and engineering numeric calculations. It has become the most widely used software package in academia and industry for modeling and simulating dynamical systems. . It automatically handles vectors, scalars, real-valued and integer-valued matrices as special cases of the complex matrix data type. Variables in MATLAB need not be dimensioned before use. Variable names must begin with a letter and must contain no more than 31 characters; the rest of the name can contain letters, digits, and underscore characters. Since MATLAB is case-sensitive, y and Y represent dierent variables .All calculations in MATLAB are performed in double precision. However, the screen out put can be displayed in several formats. MATLAB has evolved over a period of years with input from many users. In university environments, it is the standard instructional tool for introductory and advanced courses in mathematics, engineering, and science. In industry, MATLAB is the tool of choice for high-productivity research, development, and Analysis.

3.2

Plotting of Functions

To familiar ourselves with MATLAB environment, initially some basic functions like trigonometric functions, exponential, quadratic and quadratic-exponential were ploted and manipulated as shown in above gure(3.1) In another graph, we have a function of three equation in time domain .we took Fourier transform of that function .In next step these functions were transformed into frequency

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domain using fast Fourier transform (FFT) . A Fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an ecient algorithm to compute the discrete Fourier transform and its inverse . Fast Fourier transform algorithms generally fall into two classes, decimation in time, and decimation in frequency. The ouput result is shown in the g(3.2). In gure(3.3) the blue line show pulse with out Kerr eect.When Kerr eect is added pulse speed is increased and self phase modulation occurs.The frequence also changes due to Kerr eect the pulse width increases. Similarly in gure(3.4), we have a simple ultra short laser pulse in electric eld. We then took Fourier transorm.In output we took two peeks,One is imagnary part and another is real part.

Figure 3.1: graph1

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Figure 3.2: graph2

Figure 3.3: graph3 29

Figure 3.4: graph4

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References
[1] ]Marvin J. Weber, Hand book of laser, CRC Press LLC, 2001 [2] William Thomas Silfvast, Laser fundamentals, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 2003 [3] Je Hecht, The Laser Guidebook 2nd edition, McDraw HILL, 1992 [4] Jrgen Eichler, J Eichler Laser, Springer [5] Peter W. Milonni, Joseph H. Eberly, Laser Physics, WILEY [6] Mark Csele, Fundamentals Of Light Sources And Lasers, Wiley Intersciences [7] Joseph W. Goodman, Laser applications, Volume 4, Academic Press, 1980 [8] Myron L. Wolbarsht, Laser Applications in Medicine and Biology, Volume 5, plenum press, 1991 [9] Michael Harold Freeman, C. C. Hull, Optics, 11th edition, Butterworth Heinemann, 2003 [10] Michael Bass, Casimer DeCusatis, Guifang Li, Virendra N. Mah, Handbook of Optics: Optical properties of materials, nonlinear optics, Volume 4, OSA [11] Masud Mansuripur, Classical optics and its applications, Cambridge, 2002 [12] Sir Francis Graham-Smith, Terry A. King, Dan Wilkins, Optics and photonics, an introduction, 2nd edition, Wiley [13] Martin Centurion, Study Of The Nonlinear Propagation Of Femtosecond Laser Pulses, Pasadena, California, 2005 [14] Robert W. Boyd, Nonlinear optics, 3rd edition, academic press

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[15] R. Ramaswami, K. Sivarajan, Optical Networks - A Practical Perspective, 1998 [16] K. K. Sharma, Optics principles and applications, Academic press [17] Obert W. Boyd, Nonlinear optics, Second edition, Academic press, 2003. [18] Melnichuk, Mike; Wood, Lowell T. Direct Kerr electro-optic eect in noncentrosymmetric materials. [19] Geir Hasle, Knut-Andreas Lie, Ewald Quak - Geometric modelling, numerical simulation, and optimization Springer 2007 [20] O.Beucher and M.Weeks,Third Edition, Introduction to MATlAB and Simulink, Innity Science Press 2008.

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