PHY353 Optics and Lasers

Spring 2023
Assignment 3
Maximum Score: 10 Points

1. For a system in thermal equilibrium, calculate the temperature at which the

rates of spontaneous and stimulated emission are equal for a wavelength of
10 m.
2. Under what conditions you obtain (a) Rayleigh-Jeans law and (b) Wien’s
blackbody radiation law from Planck’s blackbody radiation law.
3. Reproduce Einstein two-level atom analysis to obtain Planck’s blackbody
radiation. How are the Einstein A and B coefficients related? What happens if
you ignore stimulated emission in the rate equation?
4. The surface temperature of the Sun is 5800 K and measurements of the Sun’s
spectral distribution show that it radiates very nearly like a blackbody,
deviating mainly at very short wavelengths. Assuming that the Sun radiates
like an ideal blackbody, at what wavelength does the peak of the solar
spectrum occur?
5. (a) Plot the average photon number in a mode of the radiation field as a
function of frequency ( =500 – 800 nm) at a temperature of 4000 K. (b) Plot
the average photon number as a function of temperature ( =2000 – 7000 K)
at of frequency of 1.2 x1014 Hz.