Laser 2 lectures

Laser 2

Lecture 2

1.1 Three and four-level laser system

Lasers are classed by the number of energy levels involved in the actual lasing
process as three- or four-level lasers. In a three-level system (the simplest), energy
injected into the gain medium excites atoms to a pump level above the upper lasing
level. From there atoms decay to the upper lasing level (ULL). This decay to the
ULL usually occurs by emitting heat, not photons. It is rapid and quickly populates
the upper energy level. This ULL often has a long lifetime, so a healthy population
of atoms builds in that level. Lasing transitions now occur between the upper level
(ULL) and the ground state, emitting laser light in the process. The lower lasing
level (LLL) in this system is missing; the ground state serves that purpose. The left
side of Figure 1.1 shows the energies involved in a three-level laser, including the
pump, upper lasing level, and lower-lasing levels.

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Figure 1.11: Energy levels in three- and four-level lasers.

The right side of figure 1.1 shows the four-level lasers system. Four-level systems
feature has LLL between the ULL and ground states. In this case, atoms are
excited to the upper lasing level, where they make a transition to the lower lasing
level, finally decaying to the ground state.

1.2 Rate equation for tow level laser system

Consider a system of the simple atomic system the rate equation for any given
level is involving only two energy levels, N1 and N2, where N1 is the lower level for
the transition and N2 the upper level. An atom at the lower level can absorb a
photon of a specific energy and be promoted to the upper level. Similarly, an atom
at the upper level can jump to the lower level and in the process emit a photon of
light with energy corresponding to the energy difference between the two levels. In
addition to displaying the spontaneous emission of a photon, the same atom at the

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upper level can be stimulated to emit a photon of light in the process of stimulated
emission.

Figure 1.2: Processes in a two-level atomic system

Simply put, the rate equation for any given level is

Where W is the probability of a transition and N is the population of the level.

For an atom at the lower energy level N1 the probability of absorbing a photon and
being promoted to the upper level is W12.

The probability of a single event (absorption or stimulated emission) occurring is

related to the cross-section (defined by):

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Where σ is the cross-section of the transition (in cm2), I the intensity of the incident
photon stream (in W/cm2), and hυ the energy of a single photon in the stream (in
joules).

We may also relate this probability to the Einstein B coefficient, which can be
expressed as:

Where ρ is the energy density.

We now begin an analysis of a two-level system by expressing the rates at which

atoms populate each level. In a two-level system we can express the rate of each
level as.

Where t21 is the decay lifetime of the pump level 2 to level 1:

Similarly, for the lower level:

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Since a laser requires a population inversion to work, it is most useful to express

the population difference at any time t as ∆N= N1(t)-N2(t) .When this number is
less than zero, we have an inversion. We can now solve for the rate of change of
the population difference as:

1.3 Rate equation for three and four level lasers system
Note: The rate equations are widely used in laser design to evaluate output power.
The spontaneous emission contributes to the intensity of the interacting field, but
only with a very small amount and is neglected here. Nevertheless it is important,
because the laser is started by spontaneous emission.

The analysis of a three-level laser is progressing with an examination of energy

flow into and out of each level in the system. We begin with a look at the pump
level, which is populated via upward transitions from the ground state and loses
population via downward decay to the ULL denoted level 2 in figure 1.1 left side.

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Figure 1.1: Energy levels in three- and four-level lasers.

The rate equation for the pump level can be expressed as the change of population
of atoms in the pump level as follows:

Where W13 is the probability of an atom making the transition from level 1 to level
3 and τ3 is the decay lifetime of the pump level. The flow of energy into the pump
level is described by the first half of the equation, in which (N1- N3) represents the
number of atoms available at the ground state to be pumped to level 3 by W13
.(Energy from the pump level flows out downward by decay to the ULL, as
described by the second half of the equation (N3/ τ3) in units of a number of atoms
per second. Note that the decay lifetime τ3 is a total lifetime representing both the
decay from level 3 to level 2 and the decay from level 3 to level 1.

The population of each level remains constant, so the flow of energy into the level
is the same as the flow of energy out of the level

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By solving equation 1.13

Since t3 is a small quantity (indeed, for a practical three-level laser the decay from
the pump level to the upper level must be much faster than the decay from the
upper to the lower lasing levels) and hence, numerically speaking, 1/t3 is much
greater than W13 so that the latter term can essentially be ignored, giving us an
expression for N3:

Following the same process, the rate equation for the upper lasing level can be
expressed as:

Where τ32 is the decay lifetime from the pump level to the ULL and τ21 is the
lifetime of the ULL (see figure 1.1).We may now equate the rate of the ULL to
zero at steady state as well, stating that the population of the ULL remains constant

(Inversion, and hence gain, does not increase or decrease under steady-state
conditions), equation 1.16 can be solved as:

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We yield an expression for inversion now defined as N2(t)-N1(t); with ∆N > 0 to

signify an inversion:

Substituting eq. 1.17 and 1.15 in eq. 1.18 we get:

Here t3 is the same t32 then:

For the four-level laser system (see the right side of figure 1.1) the rate
equation expressed as:

Where W14 is the probability of an atom making the transition from level 1 to level
4 and τ4 is the total lifetime of the pump level (see figure 1.1).

The flow of energy into the pump level is described by the first half of the
equation, in which (N1- N4) represents the number of atoms available at the ground
state to be pumped to level 4. Energy from the pump level flows out downward by
decay to the ULL. This is described by the second half of the equation in units of a
number of atoms per second. Like the three-level example, note that t4 represents

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the total lifetime of the pump level (4), which can decay to levels 3, 2, or 1 (i.e.,
1/t4 = 1/t43 + 1/t42 + 1/ t41).

The equation for the upper lasing level (ULL) can be expressed as:

Where t43 is the decay lifetime from the pump level to the ULL and t3 is the
lifetime of the ULL. Finally, we can express the rate equation of the lower lasing
level (LLL) as:

Where t42 is the decay lifetime from the pump level directly to the LLL, t32 the
lifetime of the laser transition (ULL to LLL), and t21 the lifetime of the LLL. Like
the three-level laser, we begin with the pump level as a steady state condition:

But the population of N4 in a real laser will be much smaller than that of N1, so we
can simply alter equation by eliminating one term from the left side of the
equation:

Which may be solved algebraically in terms of N4 as:

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Similarly, the rate equation for the ULL can be equated to zero to solve
for a steady-state condition:

Which yields the solution:

Finally, we can equate the rate of the LLL to zero at steady state because
the lifetime of t42 is larger than N4(remembering that the term N4/t42 =0),
as follows:

Finally, combining equations (1.32), (1.29), and (1.27)), we obtain an expression

for inversion (again, with ∆N > 0 for an inversion):

Here we applied just for the ULL and LLL where the laser is emitted.

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