Lab Session Report Phu Duong Le

John Love Owoje

SESSION 3: Helium-Neon Laser

1. Purpose of the lab work

This lab session aims to study the characteristics of the Helium-Neon laser.

2. Theoretical knowledge
2.1.The structure of the He-Ne laser [2]

Fig 1. The structure of the He-Ne laser. [1]

The He-Ne laser is the first gas laser to operate in continuous mode. It is widely used to this day
because of its robustness, reliability, and moderate cost. It is characterized by high coherence and
directivity.

The Helium-Neon laser is a four-level system and has an active environment and the active medium
is a mixture of He: Ne (10: 1). The laser emission is due to the transitions of the Neon which is
excited by collisional transfer with the excited Helium atoms themselves. The main transitions
involved are: 3s-3p (= 3.39 m, infrared), 2s-2p (= 1.15 m, infrared) and especially 3s-2p (= 0.6328
m, red). Other laser emissions in yellow, orange, or green are also possible because level 2p is
made up of several sublevels that can create a laser effect. The active medium is excited by an
electrical discharge of a few mA at a few kV. Between the two electrodes, the electric field
accelerates the free electrons of the discharge. These collide with the Helium atoms. The excited
Helium atoms then transfer their energy to the Neon atoms by collision. The Neon atoms remain
excited for a few milliseconds (metastable state). So, we have a strong population inversion. The

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Neon atoms then de-excite by stimulated emission from 3s to 3p or 3s to 2p or 2s to 2p and collide
with the walls of the laser tube to return to the fundamental state.

2.2. The cavity of the He-Ne laser [2]

To have a laser effect, it is necessary to create light resonances within the exciting active medium.
For this purpose, the active medium is closed in a cavity made up of two mirrors. The cavity is
optically resonant for the following frequencies:

𝐧𝛌
Lc =
𝟐𝛈

In which, Lc : cavity length

n : an integer number
𝜂 : refractive index
𝜆 : wavelength

3. Experimental Procedure
- We Positioned the primary laser as well as the pilot laser on the rail.
- Activate the power source for the pilot laser with the main laser powered off. It is necessary
to pre-align the pilot laser with the optical axis of the main laser to ensure that the beam
from the pilot laser travels through the capillary of the He-Ne tube without being deformed.
After successfully aligning the positions, we turned off the primary laser.
- Placed the second laser mirror adjustment holder onto the rail in the appropriate location.
If the main laser and the mirrors are precisely aligned with one another, then the main laser
will begin oscillating inside the tube.
- Set the cavity length at approximately 60cm to align the cavity and obtain the laser effect.
- Optimized the laser power, and then measured the power as a function of the position of
the tube in the cavity taking the first mirror as a reference.
- Moved the spherical mirror to increase the cavity length up to 70, 80, and 90 cm, and for
each cavity length, we optimized the laser power and then measured the power as a function
of the position of the tube in the cavity.
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Fixed cavity length

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John Love Owoje
a) The laser effect

After setting 60 cm for the cavity length, we got a flashing of the beam on the output face of the
alignment laser when the mirror is properly adjusted.

Fig 2. The result that we observed on the output plane

This result is explained by the interference between the pilot laser and the reflected laser beam.
The better the mirrors are aligned, the more obvious interference occurs, especially a “flash” of the
beam can be expected. However, because of our non-well setting up, we just get an obvious
interference pattern instead of a flash of the beam.

b) Measurement of the power as a function of the current

After getting the laser effect, we measured the power as a function of the current applied in the
tube. Our results are shown in the below table:

Table 1. The power function of the applied current.

Current Power
No.
(mA) (µW)
1 4.83 8.62
2 4.87 8.57
3 4.92 8.55
4 4.99 8.68
5 5.05 8.70

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6 5.10 8.89
7 5.12 8.94
8 5.31 9.36
9 6.19 10.34
10 6.33 10.37
From the table, we can illustrate the values in a graph:

The power function of the applied current

11

10.5
Power [µW]

10

9.5

8.5
4.8 5.2 5.6 6 6.4
Current [mA]

Fig 3. The graph for measurement power.

From the graph, we can deduce that when the system is aligned well, the more current is applied,
the more power is obtained. However, during the first measurements, we didn’t wait for the stable
values before writing them down, there are points that are not really linear.

c) Measurement of the power with the 60 cm cavity length

Adjust the distance between the mirror 1 and 2 to 60 cm (the cavity length is 60 cm). Then, we
moved the position of the main laser away from mirror 1 (the reference mirror) and measure the
power corresponding to each position. We obtained the table after that.

Table 2. Values between the position of the tube and power at a cavity length of 60cm

Position Power
No.
(cm) (µW)

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1 5 14.13
2 8 11.50
3 11 9.36
4 14 10.54
5 17 12.90
6 20 14.05
From those values, we have a graph for them.

The fuction between the power and the distance

15

14

13
Power [µW]

12

11

10

8
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Distance [cm]

Fig 4. The power function of the distance.

From the graph, we see that the power became to decrease when moving the tube (the main laser)
away from mirror 1. However, when the tube reaches a certain position (the point where the
minimum value of energy is reached) it starts to gradually increase the power to the initial energy
value. It was explained that we couldn't keep the system aligned well during our measurements.
For example, at higher values, we left our optical system out of alignment, so the energy was lower
than expected. And conversely, at lower expected values, but the optical system is re-aligned by
us, so the energy value increases higher. From this, we can see that it is extremely important to
keep the optical system in position during the measurement.

4.2. Modification of the laser cavity length

a) Increasing the Cavity length:

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We increased the cavity length to 70cm and varied the position of the laser tube considering the
power at each varied position.

Table 3. Values between the position of the tube and power at a cavity length of 70cm

Position Power
No.
(cm) (µW)
1 5 7.35
2 8 6.45
3 11 6.18
4 14 6.57
5 17 6.9
6 20 7.25
7 23 5.97
8 26 5.08

At Cavity Length of 70cm

8
7
6
Power [µW]

5
4
3
2
1
0
5 8 11 14 17 20 23 26
Position [cm]

Fig 5. Laser Power Vs Tube Position

Discussion: From the graph, the maximum power was recorded at the tube’s 5cm distance from
Mirror 1 and the minimum was at 26cm from the mirror. The power was reduced and at 20cm, it

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increased to almost that of the maximum, this can be attributed to the intensity of the laser
becoming more stable.

Table 4. Values between the position of the tube and power at a cavity length of 80cm

Position Power
No.
(cm) (µW)
1 5 15.90
2 8 15.00
3 11 13.67
4 14 11.39
5 17 8.37
6 20 6.69
7 23 4.65
8 26 1.92

At Cavity Length of 80cm

18
16
14
12
Power [µW]

10
8
6
4
2
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Position [cm]

Fig 6. Laser Power and Tube Position

Discussion: From the graph, the maximum power was recorded at the tube’s 5cm distance from
Mirror 1 and the minimum was at 26cm from the mirror. The power decreased as the position
increased.

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Table 5. Values between the position of the tube and power at a cavity length of 90cm

Position Power
No.
(cm) (µW)
1 5 9.44
2 8 8.21
3 11 6.82
4 14 5.42
5 17 4.63
6 20 2.54
7 23 2.43
8 26 2.2

At Cavity Length of 90cm

10

8
power [µW]

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Position [cm]

Fig 7. Laser Power and Tube Position

Discussion: From the graph, the maximum power was recorded at the tube’s 5cm distance from
Mirror 1 and the minimum was at 26cm from the mirror. The power decreased as the position
increased.

b) To obtain the best laser

To obtain the best laser action, the length of the cavity needs to be perfectly aligned. After
measuring the length of the cavity at 60cm,70cm,80cm, and 90cm, we concluded that to get the

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perfect laser action, the curve of the laser’s power with the cavity position should be a perfect
gaussian curve. During our experiment, when the cavity length was 60cm and the laser tube
position was 5cm from the reference mirror 1 we obtain the best laser action.

c) The relationship between the cavity length and a stable cavity

We noticed that at a far distance like 80cm or 90cm, we encountered difficulties in settling or
adjusting the cavity, following stability criteria are used to compare this position to the maximum
distance L and mirrors' radius R.

−1 ≤ g1g2 ≤ 1

gi = 1 – (𝐿/ 𝑅i), 𝑖 ∈ (1,2)

d) To have an unstable cavity

Unstable laser resonators can generate a quality laser beam with high power. Unstable resonators
can have large fundamental modes without excessive sensitivity and with a strong net gain in
higher-order modes. So, in this manner, unstable lasers have some interest.

5. References

[1] Harpreet_Physics, 2021, accessed 20 October 2022, <https://www.goseeko.com/blog/what-is-

helium-neon-laser/>.

[2] Technical documents for the experience 6 “Helium-Neon Laser”, accessed 20 October 2022, <
https://mood.univ-st-
tienne.fr/pluginfile.php/553698/mod_resource/content/2/TP_HeNe_MEOS.pdf>.