Stimulated Emission and Lasers

Spontaneous emission:
■ A molecule in an excited state will decay to a lower energy
state and emit a photon, without any stimulus from the outside.

■ The best we can do is calculate the probability that a

spontaneous transition will occur.
■ If a spectral line has a width ΔE, then an upper bound estimate
of the lifetime is Δt = ħ / (2 ΔE).

1
Stimulated/Induced Emission and Lasers
Stimulated/Induced emission:
■ A photon incident upon a molecule in an excited state causes the
unstable system to decay to a lower state.
■ The photon emitted tends to have the same phase and direction as
the stimulated radiation.

■ If the incoming photon has the same energy as the emitted photon:
the result is two photons of the same
wavelength and phase traveling in the
same direction.
Because the incoming photon just
triggers emission of the second
photon.

2
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
Einstein’s analysis:
■ Consider transitions between two molecular states with energies E1
and E2 (where E1 < E2).
■ Eph is an energy of either emission or absorption.

■ f is a frequency where Eph = hf = E2 − E1.

If stimulated emission occurs:

■ The number of molecules in the higher state (N2).

■ The energy density of the incoming radiation (u(f)).

the rate at which stimulated transitions from E2 to E1 is

B21N2u(f) (where B21 is a proportional constant).
■ The probability that a molecule at E1 will absorb a photon is
B12N1u(f).
■ The rate of spontaneous emission will occur is AN2 (where A is a
constant).

3
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ Once the system has reached equilibrium with the incoming radiation,
the total number of downward and upward transitions must be equal.

■ In the thermal equilibrium each of Ni are proportional to their

Boltzmann factor .

■ In the classical time limit T → ∞. Then and u(f)

becomes very large.

the probability of stimulated emission is approximately equal

to the probability of absorption.

4
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ Solve for u(f),

or, use Eq. (10.12),

■ This closely resembles the Planck radiation law, but Planck law is
expressed in terms of frequency.

■ Eqs.(10.13) and (10.14) are required:

■ The probability of spontaneous emission (A) is proportional to the

probability of stimulated emission (B) in equilibrium.

5
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
Laser:
■ An acronym for “light amplification by the stimulated emission of
radiation.”

Masers:
■ Microwaves are used instead of visible light.

■ The first working laser by Theodore H. Maiman in 1960.

helium-neon laser

6
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ The body of the laser is a closed tube, filled with about a 9/1 ratio
of helium and neon.
■ Photons bouncing back and forth between two mirrors are used to
stimulate the transitions in neon.
■ Photons produced by stimulated emission will be coherent, and the
photons that escape through the silvered mirror will be a coherent
beam.

How are atoms put into the excited state?

We cannot rely on the photons in the tube; if we did:
1) Any photon produced by stimulated emission would have to be
“used up” to excite another atom.
2) There may be nothing to prevent spontaneous emission from
atoms in the excited state.
the beam would not be coherent.

7
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
Use a multilevel atomic system to see those problems.
■ Three-level system

1) Atoms in the ground state are pumped to a higher state by some

external energy.
2) The atom decays quickly to E2.
The transition from E2 to E1 is forbidden by a Δℓ = ±1 selection rule.
E2 is said to be metastable.
3) Population inversion: more atoms are in the metastable than in the
ground state.

8
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ After an atom has been returned to the ground state from E2, we
want the external power supply to return it immediately to E3, but
it may take some time for this to happen.
■ A photon with energy E2 − E1 can be absorbed.
result would be a much weaker beam.
■ It is undesirable.

9
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ Four-level system

1) Atoms are pumped from the ground state to E4.

2) They decay quickly to the metastable state E3.
3) The stimulated emission takes atoms from E3 to E2.
4) The spontaneous transition from E2 to E1 is not forbidden, so E2 will
not exist long enough for a photon to be kicked from E2 to E3.
→ Lasing process can proceed efficiently.

10
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ The red helium-neon laser uses transitions between energy
levels in both helium and neon.

11
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
Tunable laser:
■ The emitted radiation wavelength can be adjusted as wide as
200 nm.
■ Semi conductor lasers are replacing dye lasers.

Free-electron laser:

12
Stimulated Emission and Lasers
■ This laser relies on charged particles.
■ A series of magnets called wigglers is used to accelerate a beam
of electrons.
■ Free electrons are not tied to atoms; they aren’t dependent upon
atomic energy levels and can be tuned to wavelengths well into
the UV part of the spectrum.

13
 Quantum Dots Laser Developed: August 13, 2013
In a search for a more reliable and tuneable laser sources, a group of scientists
led by Prof. Lee from the National Cheng Kung University of Taiwan developed a
quantum-dots based laser. Colloidal quantum dots (QD) of CdSe/ZnS were
embedded into a cholesteric liquid crystal matrix. The article is soon to be published
in Advanced Optical Materials.
Liquid crystals, which have photonic crystal behaviour, are already used in
construction of dye-doped lasers, which, however, have several drawbacks such
as thermal, chemical and photo- instabilities.
This study was the first to report a highly directional lasing emission based on a
QD-embedded CLC (QDCLC) cell. Experimental results showed that the QDs had
a key function not only as the nanoscaled source of fluorescence emission but
also as the structural stabilizer of the CLC microresonator.
Comparing the developed QD-laser with the existing dye-doped laser, Prof. Lee
said, "The developed QDCLC laser could tolerate a strong pumped energy
without damage (over 83 μ J/pulse), and this threshold is over 1.66 times higher
than that (50 μ J/pulse) of a traditional DDCLC laser. The divergence angle of
the QDCLC lasing emission is 1.67 times smaller than that of the DDCLC lasing
emission. Furthermore, the QDCLC laser has flexibly thermal and electrical
tunabilities in the lasing threshold, linewidth, and wavelength."
"Combining the QD gain medium and the tunable CLC resonator can potentially result in the
fabrication of tunable coherent light sources or laser devices (e.g., tunable single photon laser)
with advantages of low cost, highly fl exible tunability, high stability, high damage threshold,
lower beam divergence, and high reusability" Prof. Lee said.
All of the materials used in this study including CdSe/ZnS quantum dots are commercially
available.
Related articles:
Scientific Applications of Lasers
■ Extremely coherent and nondivergent beam is used in making
precise determination of large and small distances. The speed
of light in a vacuum is defined. c = 299,792,458 m/s.

■ Pulsed lasers are used in thin-film deposition to study the

electronic properties of different materials.

■ The use of lasers in fusion research.

❑ Inertial confinement:
A pellet of deuterium and tritium would be induced into fusion by
an intense burst of laser light coming simultaneously from many
directions.

15
Quantum Entanglement, Teleportation, and
Information
■ Schrödinger used the term “quantum entanglement” to describe a
strange correlation between two quantum systems. He considered
entanglement for quantum states acting across large distances,
which Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance.”

Quantum teleportation:
■ No information can be transmitted through only quantum
entanglement, but transmitting information using entangled
systems in conjunction with classical information is possible.

16
Quantum Entanglement, Teleportation, and
Information
Alice, who does not know the property of the photon, is spacially
separated from Bob and tries to transfer information about photons.

1) A beam splitter can be used to produce two additional photons

that can be used to trigger a detector.
Alice can manipulate her quantum system and send that
information over a classical information channel to Bob.
2) Bob then arranges his part of the quantum system to detect
information.
Ex. The polarization status, about the unknown quantum
state at his detector.

17