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Graduate Texts in Physics

Karl F. Renk

Basics of
Laser Physics
For Students of Science and Engineering
Second Edition
Graduate Texts in Physics

Series editors
Kurt H. Becker, Polytechnic School of Engineering, Brooklyn, USA
Jean-Marc Di Meglio, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France
Sadri Hassani, Illinois State University, Normal, USA
Bill Munro, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Atsugi, Japan
Richard Needs, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
William T. Rhodes, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, USA
Susan Scott, Australian National University, Acton, Australia
H. Eugene Stanley, Boston University, Boston, USA
Martin Stutzmann, TU München, Garching, Germany
Andreas Wipf, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany
Graduate Texts in Physics

Graduate Texts in Physics publishes core learning/teaching material for graduate- and
advanced-level undergraduate courses on topics of current and emerging fields within
physics, both pure and applied. These textbooks serve students at the MS- or
PhD-level and their instructors as comprehensive sources of principles, definitions,
derivations, experiments and applications (as relevant) for their mastery and teaching,
respectively. International in scope and relevance, the textbooks correspond to course
syllabi sufficiently to serve as required reading. Their didactic style, comprehensive-
ness and coverage of fundamental material also make them suitable as introductions
or references for scientists entering, or requiring timely knowledge of, a research field.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8431

Karl F. Renk

Basics of Laser Physics

For Students of Science and Engineering

Second Edition

With 344 Figures

123
Karl F. Renk
Institut für Angewandte Physik
Universität Regensburg
Regensburg
Germany

ISSN 1868-4513 ISSN 1868-4521 (electronic)

Graduate Texts in Physics
ISBN 978-3-319-50650-0 ISBN 978-3-319-50651-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50651-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963172

1st edition: © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

2nd edition: © Springer International Publishing AG 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
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To Marianne, Christiane, and Peter
Preface to the Second Edition

Observation of a gravitational wave is the most spectacular recent application of a

laser (published in Physical Review Letters, February 2016). Four Nobel Prizes in
the last four years for achievements in physics and chemistry (see Sect. 1.9 of the
book) demonstrate the significance of lasers for scientific research. There is a steady
development of lasers and of their use in scientific research in physics, chemistry,
engineering, biophysics, medicine, and technical applications. Important progress
has been made in the last years in the development and application of infrared and
far-infrared free-electron lasers, and of X-ray free-electron lasers. X-ray free-electron
lasers are opening new possibilities in scientific research and in application.
The first edition of the textbook Basics of Laser Physics presented a modulation
model of a free-electron laser, illustrating dynamical processes in a free-electron
laser. The second edition gives a modified treatment of the model. The model
provides analytical expressions for the gain and for the saturation field of radiation
in a free-electron laser. The results drawn from the modulation model are consistent
with the results of theory that is based on Maxwell’s equations; main results
of theory arise from numerical solutions of Maxwell’s equations. In accord with the
modulation model is a description of the active medium of a free-electron laser as a
quantum system, already discussed in the first edition: an electron, which performs
an oscillation in a spatially periodic magnetic field, may be describable as an
electron occupying an energy level of an energy-ladder system; accordingly,
electronic transitions between the energy levels are origin of spontaneous and
stimulated emission of radiation.
In order to stress features that are common to a conventional laser and a
free-electron laser or show differences, various points are clearly structured in the
new edition, such as the role of dephasing between a radiation field and an oscillator
or Lorentzian-like functions (denoted as “Lorentz functions”) describing frequency
dependences of gain near or outside resonances. The second edition contains
additionally: classical oscillator model of a laser (van der Pol equation of a laser);
onset of laser oscillation of a titanium–sapphire laser; discussion of differences
between a conventional laser and a free-electron laser; and a modification of the
description of the yet hypothetical Bloch laser.

vii
viii Preface to the Second Edition

Additional problems should provide a deepening of the understanding of lasers.

Furthermore, errors are corrected. The principle of the overall representation
remains unchanged: this book is designed in a way that a student can study many
of the chapters without special knowledge of the preceding chapters. In most
chapters, the content develops from a more general aspect to specific aspects. Let
me mention a particular point-concerning notation. I am using, besides the letter
N for the number of particles per unit volume, the letter Z for the number (=Zahl,
German) of photons per unit volume, instead of common combinations of a Latin
and a Greek letter, or of an upper- and a lower-case letter.
I am indebted to Manfred Helm for a number of very helpful comments to the
first edition and Joachim Keller for discussions of basic questions concerning the
free-electron laser. I would like to thank Sergey Ganichev, Rupert Huber, Alfons
Penzkofer, Willli Prettl, and Stephan Winnerl for discussions. It is a pleasure to
acknowledge encouragement by Claus Ascheron and the friendly collaboration with
Adelheid Duhm and Elke Sauer at Springer Verlag. I thank Sameena Begum Khan
and her production team at Springer Verlag for the commitment to the preparation
of the book. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Marianne for her patience.

Regensburg, Germany Karl F. Renk

Contents

Part I General Description of a Laser and an Example

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Laser and Light Bulb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Spectral Ranges of Lasers and List of a Few Lasers . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Laser Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Sizes of Lasers, Cost of Lasers, and Laser Market . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Questions about the Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Different Types of Lasers in the Same Spectral Range . . . . . . . 9
1.7 Concept of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.9 A Remark About the History of the Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 Laser Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 A Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2 Coherent Electromagnetic Wave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 An Active Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4 Laser Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.5 Laser = Laser Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.6 Radiation Feedback and Threshold Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.7 Frequency of Laser Oscillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.8 Data of Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.9 Oscillation Onset Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3 Fabry–Perot Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Laser Resonators and Laser Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 V Factor and Related Quantities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3 Number of Photons in a Resonator Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 Ideal Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

ix
x Contents

3.5 Fabry–Perot Interferometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

3.6 Resonance Curve of a Fabry–Perot Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.7 Fabry–Perot Resonator Containing a Gain Medium . . . . . . . . . 52
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4 The Active Medium: Energy Levels and Lineshape Functions . . . . . 57
4.1 Two-Level Based and Energy-Ladder Based Lasers . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2 Four-Level, Three-Level, and Two-Level Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.3 Two-Band Laser and Quasiband Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.4 Lineshape: Homogeneous and Inhomogeneous Line
Broadening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.5 Lorentz Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.6 Gaussian Lineshape Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.7 Experimental Linewidths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.8 Classical Oscillator Model of an Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.9 Natural Line Broadening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.10 Energy Relaxation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.11 Dephasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.12 Dipole Oscillator and Monopole Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.13 Three-Dimensional and Low-Dimensional Active Media . . . . . 74
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5 Titanium–Sapphire Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... 77
5.1 Principle of the Titanium–Sapphire Laser. . ............... 77
5.2 Design of a Titanium–Sapphire Laser . . . . ............... 79
5.3 Absorption and Fluorescence Spectra
of Titanium–Sapphire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.4 Population of the Upper Laser Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.5 Heat and Phonons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Part II Theoretical Basis of the Laser

6 Basis of the Theory of the Laser: The Einstein Coefficients . . . . . . 85
6.1 Light and Atoms in a Cavity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.2 Spontaneous Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6.3 Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.4 Stimulated Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.5 The Einstein Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.6 Einstein Coefficients on the Energy Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.7 Stimulated Versus Spontaneous Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.8 Transition Probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.9 Determination of Einstein Coefficients
from Wave Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 95
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 96
Contents xi

7 Amplification of Coherent Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 97

7.1 Interaction of Monochromatic Radiation with an Ensemble
of Two-Level Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
7.2 Growth and Gain Coefficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.3 Gain Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.4 An Effective Gain Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.5 Gain Coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
7.6 Gain Coefficient of Titanium–Sapphire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.7 Gain Coefficient of a Medium with an Inhomogeneously
Broadened Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
7.8 Gain Characteristic of a Two-Dimensional Medium . . . . . . . . . 112
7.9 Gain of Light Crossing a Two-Dimensional Medium . . . . . . . . 114
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8 A Laser Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
8.1 Rate Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
8.2 Steady State Oscillation of a Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.3 Balance Between Production and Loss of Photons . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.4 Onset of Laser Oscillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.5 Clamping of Population Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
8.6 Optimum Output Coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.7 Two Laser Rate Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
8.8 Relaxation Oscillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.9 Laser Linewidth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
9 Driving a Laser Oscillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
9.1 Maxwell’s Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
9.2 Possibilities of Driving a Laser Oscillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
9.3 Polarization of an Atomic Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
9.4 Quantum Mechanical Expression of the Susceptibility
of an Atomic Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
9.5 Polarization of an Active Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
9.6 Polarization Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
9.7 Laser Oscillation Driven by a Polarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
9.8 Relaxation of the Polarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.9 Laser Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
9.10 Laser-van der Pol Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.11 Kramers–Kronig Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
9.12 Lorentz Functions: A Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9.13 A Third Remark About the History of the Laser . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
xii Contents

Part III Operation of a Laser

10 Cavity Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10.1 Cavity Resonators in Various Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10.2 Modes of a Cavity Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
10.3 Modes of a Long Cavity Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
10.4 Density of Modes of a Cavity Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
10.5 Fresnel Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.6 TE Waves and TM Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
10.7 Quasioptical Arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
11 Gaussian Waves and Open Resonators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
11.1 Open Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
11.2 Helmholtz Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
11.3 Gaussian Wave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
11.4 Confocal Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
11.5 Stability of a Field in a Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
11.6 Transverse Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
11.7 The Gouy Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
11.8 Diffraction Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
11.9 Ray Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
12 Different Ways of Operating a Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
12.1 Possibilities of Operating a Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
12.2 Operation of a Laser on Longitudinal Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
12.3 Single Mode Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
12.4 Tunable Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
12.5 Spectral Hole Burning in Lasers Using Inhomogeneously
Broadened Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
12.6 Q-Switched Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
12.7 Longitudinal and Transverse Pumping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
12.8 An Application of CW Lasers: The Optical Tweezers . . . . . . . 242
12.9 Another Application: Gravitational Wave Detector . . . . . . . . . 243
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
13 Femtosecond Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 245
13.1 Mode Locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 246
13.2 Active and Passive Mode Locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 251
13.3 Onset of Oscillation of a Mode-Locked Titanium–Sapphire
Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
13.4 Optical Frequency Comb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
13.5 Optical Correlator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
13.6 Pump-Probe Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Contents xiii

13.7 Femtosecond Pulses in Chemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

13.8 Optical Frequency Analyzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
13.9 Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
13.10 Attosecond Pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Part IV Types of Lasers (Except Semiconductor Lasers)

14 Gas Lasers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
14.1 Doppler Broadening of Spectral Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
14.2 Collision Broadening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
14.3 Helium–Neon Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
14.4 Metal Vapor Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
14.5 Argon Ion Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
14.6 Excimer Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
14.7 Nitrogen Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
14.8 CO2 Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
14.9 Other Gas Discharge Lasers and Optically Pumped Far
Infrared Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 284
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 286
15 Solid State Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
15.1 Ruby Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
15.2 More About the Titanium–Sapphire Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
15.3 Other Broadband Solid State Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
15.4 YAG Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
15.5 Different Neodymium Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
15.6 Disk Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
15.7 Fiber Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
15.8 A Short Survey of Solid State Lasers and Impurity Ions
in Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 302
15.9 Broadening of Transitions in Impurity Ions in Solids . . . . . . .. 306
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 307
16 Some Other Lasers and Laser Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
16.1 Dye Laser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
16.2 Solid State and Thin-Film Dye Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
16.3 Chemical Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
16.4 X-Ray Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
16.5 Random Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
16.6 Optically Pumped Organic Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
16.7 Laser Tandem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
16.8 High-Power Laser Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
16.9 Fiber Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
16.10 Optical Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
xiv Contents

16.11 Gain Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
17 Vibronic Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
17.1 Model of a Vibronic System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
17.2 Gain Coefficient of a Vibronic Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
17.3 Frequency Modulation of a Two-Level System . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
17.4 Vibronic Sideband as a Homogeneously Broadened Line . . . . 324
Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
18 Amplification of Radiation in a Doped Glass Fiber . . . . . . . . . . . .. 325
18.1 Survey of the Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . .. 326
18.2 Energy Levels of Erbium Ions in Glass
and Quasiband Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 328
18.3 Quasi-Fermi Energy of a Gas of Excited-Impurity
Quasiparticles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
18.4 Condition of Gain of Light Propagating in a Fiber . . . . . . . . . 333
18.5 Energy Level Broadening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
18.6 Calculation of the Gain Coefficient of a Doped Fiber . . . . . . . 336
18.7 Different Effective Gain Cross Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
18.8 Absorption and Fluorescence Spectra of an Erbium-Doped
Fiber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 341
18.9 Experimental Studies and Models of Doped Fiber Media . . .. 342
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 344
19 Free-Electron Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 347
19.1 Principle of the Free-Electron Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 348
19.2 Free-Electron Laser Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 351
19.3 Free-Electron Oscillation: Resonance Frequency
and Spontaneously Emitted Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 353
19.4 Data of a Free-Electron Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 358
19.5 Rigid Coupling of Transverse and Longitudinal Oscillation
of an Electron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
19.6 High Frequency Transverse Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
19.7 Modulation Model of the Free-Electron Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
19.8 Saturation Field and Energy of Distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
19.9 Critical Modulation Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
19.10 Modulation Model and Data of Free-Electron Lasers . . . . . . . . 375
19.11 Modulation Model and SASE Free-Electron Lasers . . . . . . . . . 379
19.12 Onset of Oscillation of a Free-Electron Laser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
19.13 Phase Between Electron Oscillation and Optical Field . . . . . . . 384
19.14 Optical Constants of a Free-Electron Laser Medium . . . . . . . . 387
19.15 Mode Locked Free-Electron Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
19.16 Electron Bunching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
19.17 Energy-Level Description of a Free-Electron
Laser Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 391
Contents xv

19.18 Aspects of Free-Electron Laser Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 398

19.19 Comparison of a Free-Electron Laser with a Conventional
Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 401
19.20 Remark About the History of the Free-Electron Laser . . . . . .. 405
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 406

Part V Semiconductor Lasers

20 An Introduction to Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
20.1 Energy Bands of Semiconductors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
20.2 Low-Dimensional Semiconductors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
20.3 An Estimate of the Transparency Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
20.4 Bipolar and Unipolar Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
20.5 Edge-Emitting Bipolar Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
20.6 Survey of Topics Concerning Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . 423
20.7 Frequency Ranges of Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
20.8 Energy Band Engineering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
20.9 Differences Between Semiconductor Lasers
and Other Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 425
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 426
21 Basis of a Bipolar Semiconductor Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 427
21.1 Principle of a Bipolar Semiconductor Laser . . . . . . . . ....... 428
21.2 Condition of Gain of Radiation
in a Bipolar Semiconductor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 429
21.3 Energy Level Broadening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 433
21.4 Reduced Density of States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 434
21.5 Growth Coefficient and Gain Coefficient of a Bipolar
Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
21.6 Spontaneous Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
21.7 Laser Equations of a Bipolar Semiconductor Laser . . . . . . . . . 440
21.8 Gain Mediated by a Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
21.9 Laser Equations of a Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
21.10 What Is Meant by “Bipolar”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
22 GaAs Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
22.1 GaAs Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
22.2 An Active Quantum Well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
22.3 GaAs Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
22.4 Threshold Current of a GaAs Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . 469
22.5 Multi-Quantum Well Laser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
22.6 High-Power Semiconductor Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
xvi Contents

22.7 Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

22.8 Polarization of Radiation of a Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . 473
22.9 Luminescence Radiation from a Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
23 Semiconductor Materials and Heterostructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
23.1 Group III–V and Group II–VI Semiconductors . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
23.2 GaAlAs Mixed Crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
23.3 GaAs Crystal and Monolayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
23.4 GaAs/GaAlAs Heterostructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
23.5 Preparation of Heterostructures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
23.6 Preparation of Laser Diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
23.7 Material Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
23.8 Energy Bands and Absorption Coefficients of GaAs
and AlAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 481
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 482
24 Quantum Well Lasers from the UV to the Infrared . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
24.1 A Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
24.2 Red and Infrared Laser Diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
24.3 Blue and UV Laser Diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
24.4 Group II–VI Materials of Green Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
24.5 Applications of Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
25 Reflectors of Quantum Well Lasers and of Other Lasers . . . . . . . . 491
25.1 Plane Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
25.2 Coated Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
25.3 External Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
25.4 Distributed Feedback Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
25.5 Distributed Bragg Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
25.6 Total Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
25.7 Bragg Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
25.8 Photonic Crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
25.9 Photonic Crystal Fiber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
25.10 Remark About Photonic Crystals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
25.11 Plane-Wave Transfer Matrix Method Characterizing
an Optical Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
25.12 Thin Film Between Two Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
25.13 Dielectric Multilayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
25.14 One-Dimensional Photonic Crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
25.15 Bragg Reflection as Origin of Energy Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Contents xvii

26 More About the Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

26.1 Electron Subbands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
26.2 Hole Subbands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
26.3 Modification of the Gain Characteristic by Light Holes . . . . . . 516
26.4 Gap Energy of a Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
26.5 Temperature Dependence of the Threshold Current Density
of a GaAs Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 517
26.6 Gain Mediated by a Quantum Well with Inhomogeneous
Well Thickness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
26.7 Tunability of a Quantum Well Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
26.8 Anisotropy of a Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
27 Quantum Wire and Quantum Dot Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
27.1 Quantum Wire Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
27.2 Quantum Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
27.3 Gain Mediated by a Quantum Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
27.4 Multi Quantum Wire Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
27.5 Quantum Dot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
27.6 Quantum Dot Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
27.7 One-Quantum Dot Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
28 A Comparison of Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
28.1 Gain of Radiation in a Bulk Semiconductor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
28.2 Double Heterostructure Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
28.3 GaAs Junction Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
28.4 Junction Lasers in the Infrared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
28.5 Bipolar Semiconductor Lasers: A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
28.6 Development of Semiconductor Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
28.7 Terahertz Gap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
29 Quantum Cascade Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
29.1 Principle of the Quantum Cascade Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
29.2 Infrared Quantum Cascade Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
29.3 Semiconductor Superlattice and Minibands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
29.4 Transport in a Superlattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
29.5 Far Infrared Quantum Cascade Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
30 Electron Waves in Semiconductor Heterostructures . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
30.1 Electron in a One-Dimensional Square Well Potential . . . . . . . 553
30.2 Energy Bands of Electrons in a Periodic Square Well
Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
xviii Contents

30.3 Plane-Wave Transfer Matrix Method of Characterizing

a Semiconductor Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
30.4 Minibands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
30.5 Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
30.6 Double-Quantum Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
31 A Comparison of Laser Oscillators and Quasiclassical Solid State
Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
31.1 Interaction of Radiation with an Active Medium
of a Laser or a Quasiclassical Oscillator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
31.2 Solid State Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
31.3 Semiconductor Superlattice Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
31.4 Model of a Solid State Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
31.5 Dynamics of Gain Mediated by a Semiconductor
Superlattice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
31.6 Balance of Energy in a Superlattice Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
31.7 Resonant-Tunneling Diode Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
31.8 Van der Pol Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
32 Superlattice Bloch Laser: A Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
32.1 Principle of a Superlattice Bloch Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592
32.2 Bloch Oscillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
32.3 Esaki–Tsu Characteristic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
32.4 Modulation Model of a Bloch Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
32.5 Saturation Field of a Bloch Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
32.6 Energy of Distortion in a Bloch Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
32.7 Synchronization of Bloch Oscillations to a High Frequency
Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610
32.8 Energy-Level Description of the Superlattice Bloch Laser . . . . 612
32.9 Possible Arrangements of a Bloch Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
32.10 References to the Bloch Laser and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619

Part VI Laser Related Topics

33 Optical Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
33.1 Principle of Optical Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
33.2 Glass Fiber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
33.3 Pulse Distortion Due to Dispersion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
33.4 Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
33.5 Detector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
33.6 Transfer Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
Contents xix

34 Light Emitting Diode and Organic Laser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

34.1 LED Preparation and Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
34.2 Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
34.3 Organic LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
34.4 Organic and Polymer Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
35 Nonlinear Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
35.1 Optics and Nonlinear Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
35.2 Origin of Nonlinear Polarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
35.3 Optical Frequency Doubler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
35.4 Difference Frequency Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638
35.5 Optical Parametric Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
35.6 Third-Order Polarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
35.7 Four-Wave Mixing and Optical Frequency Analyzer . . . . . . . . 641
35.8 Stimulated Raman Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
Solutions to Selected Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
 Part I
General Description of a Laser
and an Example
Chapter 1
Introduction

We will ask and partly answer a few questions. What is the difference between a
laser and a light bulb? In which frequency ranges are lasers available? Which are the
sizes and the costs of lasers? Why is it necessary to have different types of lasers in
the same frequency range? We will also mention some specific lasers and we will
discuss the concept of the book.

1.1 Laser and Light Bulb

The spatial and temporal coherence makes the difference between a laser and a light
bulb (Fig. 1.1). While a lamp emits uncorrelated wave trains into all spatial directions,
a laser generates coherent waves and the waves can have a high directionality. Which
are the possibilities of generation of spatially and temporally coherent waves? A laser
can generate a coherent continuous wave or a coherent pulse train. Extreme cases of
generation of visible radiation are as follows:
• The continuous wave laser (cw laser) emits a continuous electromagnetic wave.
The field is spatially and temporally coherent.
• The femtosecond laser emits an electromagnetic wave consisting of a pulse train;
the duration of a single pulse of a train can be as short as 5 fs (1 fs = 1 femtosecond
= 10−15 s). The field of a pulse train is spatially and temporally coherent too.
Besides continuous wave lasers and femtosecond lasers, there are pulsed lasers pro-
ducing laser pulses with durations in the picosecond, nanosecond, microsecond, or
millisecond ranges. We use the abbreviations:
• 1 ms = 1 millisecond = 10−3 s
• 1 μs = 1 microsecond = 10−6 s
• 1 ns = 1 nanosecond = 10−9 s
• 1 ps = 1 picosecond = 10−12 s

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 3

K.F. Renk, Basics of Laser Physics, Graduate Texts in Physics,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50651-7_1
4 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.1 Continuous wave (cw) laser, femtosecond (fs) laser and light bulb

• 1 fs = 1 femtosecond = 10−15 s
• 1 as = 1 attosecond = 10−18 s
The acronym LASER means: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of
Radiation. It developed to laser = device for generation of coherent electromagnetic
waves by stimulated emission of radiation. The maser (=microwave laser) makes
use of microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

1.2 Spectral Ranges of Lasers and List of a Few Lasers

Figure 1.2 shows wavelengths and frequencies of spectral ranges of the electromag-
netic spectrum—from X-rays over the ultraviolet (UV), the visible, the near infrared
(NIR), the far infrared (FIR) spectral ranges to microwaves and radiowaves. The
frequency ν of an electromagnetic wave in vacuum obeys the relation

ν = c/λ, (1.1)

where c (= 3 × 108 m s−1 ) is the speed of light and λ the wavelength. Abbreviations
of frequencies are as follows:
• 1 MHz = 1 megahertz = 106 Hz
• 1 GHz = 1 gigahertz = 109 Hz
• 1 THz = 1 terahertz = 1012 Hz
• 1 PHz = 1 petahertz = 1015 Hz
The visible spectral range corresponds to a frequency range of about 430–750 THz
(wavelength range about 400–700 nm). Optics and light refer to electromagnetic
waves with vacuum wavelengths smaller than about 1 mm, i.e., with frequencies
above 300 GHz. Lasers are available in the ultraviolet, visible, near infrared, far
infrared, and microwave regions. Lasers of the range of X-rays are being developed.
The spectral ranges in which lasers are available extend from the GHz range over
the THz range to the region above 1,000 THz.
The ancient Greeks understood μ  γ α (mega) as something that was exceeding
all measurable things, γ ι γ α (giga) had to do with the giants, τ  ρ a (tera) included
1.2 Spectral Ranges of Lasers and List of a Few Lasers 5

Fig. 1.2 Spectral ranges of lasers

Table 1.1 Laser wavelengths, frequencies, and quantum energies

Laser λ ν(THz) hν(10−19 J) Pout
HeNe 633 nm 474 3.1 1–10 mW
CO2 10.6 μm 28 0.18 1 W to 1 kW
Nd:YAG 1.06 μm 283 1.9 2W
TiS 830 nm 360 2.4 100 mW to 5 W
Fiber 1.5 μm 200 1.3 1W
Semiconductor 840 nm 357 2.4 10–100 mW
QCL 5 μm 60 0.25 10–100 mW

their gods, and π  τ a (peta) was the largest one could imagine—world, giants, gods,
and all spheres together. The notation “terahertz” was introduced shortly after the
discovery of the helium–neon laser, which emits coherent radiation at a frequency
of 474 THz (wavelength 633 nm).
Table 1.1 shows data of a few continuous wave lasers. The data concern: λ =
laser wavelength; ν = laser frequency; hν = quantum energy of the photons of a
laser field (= photon energy); h = 6.6 × 10−34 J s; Pout = output power.
• Helium–neon laser (HeNe laser). It generates red laser light of a power in the
milliwatt range. Helium–neon lasers emitting radiation at other wavelengths are
also available.
• CO2 laser (carbon dioxide laser). It produces infrared radiation of high power at
wavelengths around 9.6 and 10.6 μm.
• Neodymium YAG laser (Nd:YAG laser; YAG = yttrium aluminum garnet). The laser
is a source of near infrared radiation (wavelength 1.06 μm).
• Titanium–sapphire laser (TiS laser). The laser operates as a continuous wave laser
or as a femtosecond laser. The cw titanium–sapphire laser is tunable over a very
wide spectral range (650–1080 nm).
• Fiber laser. Fiber lasers ( = lasers with glass fibers doped with rare earth ions)
operate in the wavelength range of about 0.7–3 μm.
• Semiconductor laser. Semiconductor lasers (more accurately: bipolar semiconduc-
tor lasers) are available in the entire visible, the near UV, and the near infrared. The
6 1 Introduction

Table 1.2 Pulsed lasers

Laser λ tp Wp Pulse power νrep Pav
Excimer 351 nm 50 ns 1J 20 MW 10 Hz 10 W
Nd:YAG 1.06 μm 6 ns 100 mJ 16 MW 100 Hz 10 W
TiS 780 nm 10 fs 10 nJ 1 MW 50 MHz 0.5 W

wavelength and the power (from the nW range to the 100 mW range) of radiation
generated by a semiconductor laser depend on its design. A stack of semiconductor
lasers can produce radiation with a power up to the kW range.
• Quantum cascade laser (QCL). A QCL is a type of semiconductor laser that
produces radiation in the infrared or in the far infrared. The laser wavelength of a
quantum cascade laser depends on its design.
Table 1.2 shows data of a few pulsed lasers: tp = pulse duration = halfwidth of
a pulse on the time scale = FWHM = full width at half maximum; Wp = energy
of radiation in a pulse = pulse energy; pulse power = Wp /tp ; νrep = repetition rate;
Pav = average power.
• Excimer laser. It is able to produce UV radiation pulses of high pulse power;
the wavelength given in the table is that of a laser operated with XeF excimers.
Excimers with other materials generate radiation at other wavelengths (XeCl, λ =
308 nm; KrF, 248 nm; ArF, 193 nm).
• Neodymium YAG laser. Depending on the design of a pulsed neodymium YAG
laser, the pulse duration can have a value between 5 ps or a value that is larger than
that given in the table. The average power can be larger than 10 W.
• Titanium–sapphire femtosecond laser. The power is large during very short time
intervals.
A laser system, consisting of a laser oscillator and a laser amplifier, can generate
radiation pulses of much larger pulse power levels (Sect. 16.8).

1.3 Laser Safety

Laser safety has to be taken very seriously: a laser emitting visible radiation of 1 mW
power leads to a power density in the focus (area λ2 ) of a lens—for instance, in
the focus of the lens of an eye—of the order of 109 W m−2 (105 W cm−2 ). Such a
power density can lead to damage of an eye. Dear reader, please take care of the
corresponding safety rules when you experiment with a laser!
1.4 Sizes of Lasers, Cost of Lasers, and Laser Market 7

1.4 Sizes of Lasers, Cost of Lasers, and Laser Market

There are lasers of very different size.

• A gas laser or a solid state laser has a typical length of 1 m (down to 10 cm). The
price of a laser is between 100 US dollars and 1 million dollars.
• A free-electron laser has a typical length of 10 m (not taking account of a much
larger accelerator). The price of a free-electron laser lies, depending on its prop-
erties, between 10 million and billions of dollars.
• The smallest lasers are semiconductor lasers with sizes ranging from about 1 mm
to smaller sizes. Microlasers with dimensions of the order of 10 μm can be fab-
ricated; nanolasers—with extensions below 1 μm—may be suitable for special
applications. Mass production (at a price of 10 dollars per laser or much less)
resulted in a great variety of applications of semiconductor lasers.
The laser market (Fig. 1.3a) is strongly growing. The development may be similar
as for the computer market. After the discovery of the transistor in 1946, it took
about 50 years until the transistor became widely distributed—as the essential basis
of a computer. The main breakthrough was due to miniaturization realized in the
microelectronics and due to integration of transistors in large systems. The laser,
with its first operation 14 years after the transistor, is beginning to be widely spread

Fig. 1.3 Laser market. a General development. b Industrial lasers (in 2010). c Places of installation
8 1 Introduction

as a part of devices of the daily life. The integration of the lasers in other devices and
in large systems became possible by the development of the semiconductor lasers
and their miniaturization.
The laser market offers a large variety of different lasers designed for particu-
lar applications. The laser field is in a rapid development; improvements of laser
designs, new types of lasers, and new applications make the field strongly growing.
We mention here the industrial lasers, machines suitable for various applications.
In 2009, the main contributions to the turnover in the market of industrial lasers
(Fig. 1.3b) came from the CO2 lasers, the excimer lasers, and the solid state lasers
(including a small portion of semiconductor lasers). Among the solid state lasers,
there are different types, namely rod lasers, disk lasers, and fiber lasers. Industrial
lasers find use in materials processing—cutting, welding, marking, engraving, and
microprocessing; today (2016), disk lasers reach high output power levels and are
developing as simple powerful industrial lasers. A main application of excimer lasers
concerns structuring of semiconductors. The overall turnover of industrial lasers was
about nine billion dollars in 2010. Most installations of industrial lasers (Fig. 1.3c)
are in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Lasers are the basis of photonics ( = photoelectronics) and optics. Optoelectron-
ics—the counterpart at optical frequencies to electronics at radio and microwave
frequencies—and integrated optics refer to optical systems used in optical commu-
nications, signal processing, sensing with radiation, and other fields. A characteristic
of optoelectronics is the extension of methods of electronics to the range of optical
frequencies.
Semiconductor lasers used in data communications and in consumer applications
are produced at a rate of more than one million in a week (at a prize of about 1 US $ per
piece); these lasers are mainly edge-emitting lasers (Sects. 20.5 and 25.4). More than
one million lasers per month are produced for the telecommunication market. The
lasers for the telecommunication market have a higher level of sophistication and are
produced in 2011 at a price of about $10 per piece; the lasers used in telecommunica-
tion systems are mainly vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, VCSELs (Sect. 22.7).

1.5 Questions about the Laser

In this book, we will answer a number of questions about the laser. Here we list some
questions answered in different chapters of the book.
• What is common to all lasers?
Answer: common to all lasers is the generation of radiation of high directionality;
the generation is due to stimulated emission of radiation either by quantum systems
such as atoms and molecules or by oscillating free-electrons.
• What is the working principle of the free-electron laser?
• How can we generate monochromatic radiation?
1.5 Questions About the Laser 9

• How can we generate femtosecond pulses?

• What is the role of diffraction in a laser? We will see that diffraction plays an
important and favorable role: diffraction can suppress unwanted radiation.
• What is the angle of divergence of laser radiation? The angle of divergence is in
general not determined by diffraction but by a kind of natural beams—Gaussian
beams—that fit perfectly to resonators with two spherical mirrors. A laser is able
to generate a Gaussian beam.
• How can we produce laser radiation in different ranges of the electromagnetic
spectrum?
• What is the difference between a laser and a classical oscillator?
Laser physics connects optics with atomic physics, molecular physics, solid state
physics (including semiconductor physics), and, of course, quantum mechanics, and
furthermore with engineering, chemistry, biology, and medicine.

1.6 Different Types of Lasers in the Same Spectral Range

Why do we need different types of lasers for the same spectral range? Different types
of lasers fulfill different tasks.
• If we need lasers of CD (compact disk) or blue ray players, semiconductor lasers,
with small sizes and low power consumption, fulfill the task.
• To cut metal plates, a high power laser as the CO2 laser is suitable. The efficiency of
conversion of electric power to radiation power of a CO2 laser is large (larger than
10%). The CO2 laser emits radiation in the infrared spectral region. High power
disk lasers (pumped with semiconductor lasers) emitting near infrared radiation
have also high efficiencies for conversion of electric energy to radiation. These
lasers may become able (2016) to compete with CO2 lasers.
• To generate femtosecond optical pulses, with durations from 100 to 5 fs, only few
of the many lasers have appropriate properties. The most prominent femtosecond
laser is the titanium–sapphire femtosecond laser.
Large progress came with the miniaturized semiconductor lasers but also with
the high-power semiconductor lasers—that can be applied, for example, as pump
sources of other lasers.

1.7 Concept of the Book

Figure 1.4 gives a survey of the main topics treated in the book.
General description of a laser and an example. We will describe main properties
of a laser and of the components, namely the active medium and the resonator. We
will introduce the laser as an oscillator: an active medium drives the oscillation of
10 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.4 Concept of the

book

an electromagnetic field in a resonator. Early in the book we will discuss a particular

laser (the titanium–sapphire laser) in some detail. This allows us to be specific, if
necessary, during a treatment of the theory and the discussion of the operation of a
laser.
Theory of the laser. To describe the interaction of light with matter, we introduce
the Einstein coefficients. A theoretical treatment of the laser oscillation yields the
laser threshold condition and other important properties.
Operation of a laser. We will mention different techniques of operation of a laser
as a continuous wave laser or as a pulsed laser. We will begin this part with a treatment
of the properties of resonators and the description of Gaussian waves.
Lasers except semiconductor lasers
• Gas lasers. The active medium consists of atoms, ions, or molecules in gases. Gas
lasers are available in the UV, visible, NIR, FIR, and microwave ranges. Two of
the most important industrial lasers (the excimer and the CO2 laser) are gas lasers.
• Solid state lasers (except semiconductor lasers). The active medium consists of ions
in a dielectric solid; the solid is a host for ions. Solid state lasers, operated at room
temperature, are available in the visible and the near infrared. Stimulated transitions
between electronic states of ions give rise to generation of laser radiation. Besides
crystals, other condensed matter materials—glasses, polymers, and liquids—are
also suitable as host materials of ions, atoms, or molecules.
• Free-electron lasers. The basis is the emission of radiation by oscillating free-
electrons. The electrons are passing at a velocity near the speed of light through
a spatially periodic magnetic field. Free-electron lasers are available in the vis-
ible, infrared, and far infrared; free-electron lasers generating X-rays are being
developed.
Semiconductor lasers (bipolar semiconductor lasers and quantum cascade lasers).
Semiconductor lasers are solid state lasers that use conduction electrons in semicon-
ductors. Semiconductor lasers are available in the visible, near UV, and NIR spectral
ranges and are being developed for the FIR. Stimulated transitions are either due
to electronic transitions between the conduction band and the valence band of a
1.7 Concept of the Book 11

semiconductor—in bipolar lasers—or between subbands of a conduction band—in

quantum cascade lasers. Preparation of mixed semiconductor materials and of het-
erostructures makes it possible to realize new, artificial materials that are used in
quantum well, quantum wire, quantum dot, and quantum cascade lasers. The laser
wavelength is adjustable through an appropriate design of a heterostructure. We will,
furthermore, present the idea of a Bloch laser ( = superlattice Bloch laser = Bloch
oscillator) that may become suitable for generation of FIR radiation.
Laser-related topics

• Optical communications. This is an important field of applications of semicon-

ductor lasers.
• Light emitting diode (LED). The LED is the basis of many different kinds of
illumination. The development of LEDs is going on in parallel to the development
of semiconductor lasers. The organic LED (OLED) is suited to realize simple large
area light sources.
• Nonlinear Optics. We will give a short introduction to the field of Nonlinear Optics.
Our main aspect will be: how can we convert coherent laser radiation of one
frequency to coherent radiation of other frequencies?

We will discuss various applications in connection with different topics.

1.8 References

References cited either at the end of a chapter or in the text include: textbooks on
lasers; textbooks on optoelectronics and integrated optics; books on lasers and nonlin-
ear optics; textbooks on other fields (optics, electromagnetism, atomic and molecular
physics, quantum mechanics, solid state physics; microwave electronics, mathemat-
ical formulas; and to a small extent original literature). Original literature about
lasers is well documented in different textbooks on lasers [1–11, 308]. Introductions
to quantum optics are given, for instance, in [12, 13], or, to quantum electronics
[309]. In connection with mathematical functions, see, for instance, [14–20].

1.9 A Remark About the History of the Laser

Data concerning the history of lasers

1865 James Clerk Maxwell (King’s College, London): Maxwell’s equations.

1888 Heinrich Hertz (University of Karlsruhe): generation and detection of elec-
tromagnetic waves.
1900 Max Planck (University of Berlin): quantization of radiation in a cavity.
1905 Albert Einstein (Patent office Bern): quantization of radiation.
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and shrugged indifferently.
"I sort of lost my head the moment I heard that phone bell ring," he
explained, "but a big story like this means a whole lot to me." He ran
his hand nervously through his tousled hair. "At least, you might let
me phone my office, and give the Night Desk some kind of a report
about myself. They haven't heard beans from me since I was
assigned to the story, early in the evening."
"Surely," Pat agreed. There was a little gentleness in her voice now.
"I'll trust you."
Realizing that matters had approached a crisis, I resolved to make
my presence known to Pat while the reporter was busy at the
telephone, in the library. I could see she was suffering from nerves.
The adventure was proving a little too much for her. When she saw
my tall figure moving towards her, in the dimly-lighted dining room,
she stifled a cry of alarm.
"It's all right, my dear," I said, taking her gently by the arm. "I've seen
and heard everything. You've done nothing discreditable. Let's hope
when morning comes, and Henry is sober, he'll act more sensible
than he did tonight."
When McGinity returned, and saw me, his face went a little paler. He
appeared relieved when I gave him a friendly smile.
"What's happened?" he asked, glancing at Pat, after she had
introduced me.
"I don't want you young people to be alarmed," I said, "but there's no
telling. Henry's a light sleeper, and he may drop in on you at any
moment."
Just then Niki came in, bearing the reporter's supper on a huge silver
tray. Niki was probably just as much surprised at seeing me there, as
I was in discovering him, in the first place, but his face was still a
stolid mask. While he busied himself at the table, I shepherded
McGinity and Pat to one side, and said, in a low voice:
"Now, Mr. McGinity, you hurry and eat your supper, and I'll relieve
Patricia, and act as your bodyguard until I've locked you up again
safely in our cellar."
"But he isn't to be locked up again," said Pat, after McGinity had
seated himself at the table. "I've already given orders to Niki to put
him in the Blue Room."
I gasped. It was almost incomprehensible. The Blue Room was the
most attractive and spacious guest-room in the castle.
"Mr. McGinity can remain comfortably there, without any disturbance
from Uncle Henry," she continued, "until Niki serves him his
breakfast. As a prevention against catching cold, after his exposure
this evening, I've instructed Niki to give him a good alcohol rub-
down, and also to massage his jaw. You've no objections, Uncle
Livingston?"
"None," I replied. Not a hint that I was utterly flabbergasted.
McGinity heard nothing of this, or seemed to hear nothing. He was
obviously engrossed in eating his supper. But not so absorbed as I
thought when Pat said: "Well, good-night—all," and turned to leave
the room.
Then he leapt to his feet. "Don't go, please!" he pleaded.
"Oh, but I must," Pat said, lightly.
"Okay, then," he said, dejectedly. "See you in the morning, I hope.
Thanks for all you've done for me—thanks a whole lot."
A tired smile, a flutter of trailing white, and Pat was gone.
"She's the stuff all right," McGinity remarked, as soon as she had left
the room; "true stuff." Then I heard him mutter to himself: "I wonder
what she sees in that gink, Prince Matani?"
After that, he barely spoke a dozen words. He looked all in; even a
glass of sherry did not seem to revive him. He acted a little dazed.
When I told him he was to sleep in our best bedroom, he simply said:
"Good."
At three o'clock I left him there, in the hands of Niki, and trudged off
to bed myself, feeling like a wet rag, and wondering what the
morning would bring forth.

VIII
At breakfast, Henry wore a puzzled and anxious look, for which Pat
and I did not find it hard to account. Apparently urged by a twinge of
remorse, he had paid a secret visit to the cellar earlier in the
morning, and to his great consternation and alarm, had found the
reporter missing. Up to breakfast time, he was, of course, unaware
of Pat's doings, and had only his own knowledge to go on. Niki had
kept his silence, for a very good reason, which was—Pat.
Olinski was a few minutes late in joining us. Luckily only the four of
us were seated at the table. Prince Matani had caught an early train
for the city. Jane had remained in bed with a nervous headache.
Olinski lost no time in making inquiry about the imprisoned reporter.
Leaning over to Henry, he asked, in a low voice: "Is everything all
right?"
"Disappeared!" Henry replied, in a low aside, using his morning
paper, the Times, as a screen for the sub rosa conversation, which
then ensued. "Clean gone!" he added.
Olinski looked positively sick for a moment. "Odd, isn't it?" he
remarked.
"The whole affair's odd," Henry returned, placing a finger to his lips,
to indicate the need for secrecy and caution.
Pat and I were both listening attentively, but camouflaging our
attention with some silly chatter and laughter, as if deprecating any
idea that we wished to listen in.
"Supposing someone got rid of him—Niki, for instance," Olinski
suggested, sotto voce. "Niki's an Oriental. He may have
misunderstood your motives. Faithful servant, you know. Heard of
cases of that sort myself, in the Orient, not in this country, though."
Henry's eyes seemed to pop, and his face blanched at the
suggestion of murder. "Oh, but I think that's impossible," he asserted,
unconsciously raising his voice.
"What's impossible, Uncle Henry?" asked Pat.
"Oh!" said Henry, taken wholly by surprise. "Mr. Olinski and I were—
er—we were just discussing a rather peculiar happening of last night,
after you'd gone to bed. Something of a mystery, which seems
difficult of solution."
"Perhaps I can solve it for you," Pat suggested demurely, giving me
a knowing wink.
Olinski, who was watching Pat attentively, signed to Henry to remain
quiet, and said: "I'm afraid your distinguished uncle has got himself
into a peck of trouble."
"The thing's done, and can't be undone," Henry protested
vehemently.
"What's done, Henry?" I inquired in a perfectly innoxious tone.
As Henry hesitated, Pat spoke. "Oh, I may as well blurt it straight
out," she said. "Uncle Livingston and I were going to announce it, in
due form, but I'd just as soon tell you now. Mr. McGinity, the Daily
Recorder reporter, whom you cruelly attacked and locked up in the
cellar, last night, received proper attention, and was put to bed in the
Blue Room, after you and Mr. Olinski had retired. He's now having
his breakfast, very comfortably, I hope, in bed."
Henry stared at Pat incredulously. "Um!" he exclaimed at last.
Thereupon, she gave a plain, straightforward account of things. Told
all she knew, while I corroborated and amplified her statements
whenever necessary. And two more surprised-looking men, I never
saw in my life before. As she proceeded, Henry's face cleared. "Um!"
he said again, when the full story had been told.
"I don't think I'm much of a hand at advising in such matters," Pat
went on, "but in view of the nice mess of things you've made, Uncle
Henry—"
As she paused uncertainly, Henry caught my eye. "What do you say,
Livingston?" he asked.
"Well, if you ask me, Henry, I agree entirely with Pat," I replied, with
decision. "Assault of this reporter, and his detention in the cellar,
rank as an act in contravention of the criminal code, the penalties for
which, as you are no doubt aware, are very severe."
"We don't want any more scenes like last night, do we, Uncle
Henry?" Pat put in, ingenuously.
"Um! Um!" said Henry, reflectively.
Mentally he must have seen a picture of what might be if he did not
patch things up with the reporter, who was in a position to bring a
civil action and mulct him in very substantial damages. "I—I suppose
I did treat him rather roughly," he admitted finally, now that the
ground had been cut from under his feet. "What would you suggest,
Livingston?" he asked, meekly, again turning to me.
Struck by a sudden, happy thought, I replied: "I would suggest
offering the reporter the exclusive rights for the story of your amazing
discovery, on condition that he is not to publish it until you've given
him permission, or set a release date. Try that, and see how it
works."
"Excellent!" exclaimed Olinski.
"Very good," said Henry.
At that moment, Orkins came into the room, and informed Henry that
McGinity was in the hall, and would be obliged if Henry would see
him for a few minutes. Henry accordingly hastened into the hall, and,
as we learned afterwards, greeted the reporter with an open hand
and a cordial smile.
On returning from his interview with the reporter, I was surprised to
see him kiss Pat affectionately on the cheek. "I want to thank you,
my dear," he said, "for saving me from a world of trouble."
Pat blushed and smiled, and kissed him back, then turned away to
hide her tears.
"Family pride is a powerful instinct," I remarked, "and we still bear an
honored name, thanks to Pat."
Henry had good reason to be thankful to Pat, who had saved him
from what might have been an extremely serious contretemps. We
all had, for that matter. Pat had a head on her lovely shoulders. True
to her romantic disposition, she waved adieu to McGinity from a
mullioned window, high up in the castle, where she must have
appeared to him in the likeness of a fairy princess, as he rode off, in
company with Olinski, to the railroad station.
Henry appeared in a placid and cheerful mood during the rest of the
morning. He had managed things pretty well so far. Knowing the
value of publicity, I considered McGinity and the tabloid he
represented, with its tremendous circulation, the best medium Henry
would be able to find for the exploitation of his discovery. I knew he
hated making terms with the reporter, his keen dislike and distrust of
newspapermen seemed inherent, but McGinity had somehow to be
caught and tamed, and unless it were done quickly, McGinity might
be catching him. And that would never do.
Towards noon, Henry sent for me, and I joined him in the library,
where I found him rummaging amongst the books and papers on his
desk. He looked worried. There was something heavy bearing on his
mind. As it turned out, there were several things that harassed him.
"What now?" I asked, a note of impatience in my voice.
"Livingston," he began, with a sudden compression of his lips, and
motioning me to sit down, "will you answer a question that has been
occurring to me all morning? During the time that this reporter,
McGinity, and Pat were together, last night, did he show—well, any
sentimental interest in her? I want to know—particularly."
"No, I'm sure he did not," I replied promptly. "I recall hearing him use
such expressions as 'your delightful companionship,' 'this
incredulous you,' and 'beautiful princess!'"
"What!" Henry exclaimed, with an awkward attempt to suppress an
unbelieving smile; "do I understand you to say you attach no
sentimental significance to such expressions?"
"Why, certainly," I answered. "I attributed his romantic talking to the
after-effects of the knockout blow. At times, he appeared to be
dazed."
Henry regarded me gravely for a moment, then he said: "Livingston,
you are without a doubt the perfect ass!" He brought his fist down
with a thud on his desk to emphasize more completely his opinion of
me.
"Whatever do you mean?" I demanded.
"Listen to me," said Henry, leaning over the desk towards me. "What
happened last night between Pat and this reporter is going to bring
an alarming new situation in our household. Pat has become
romantically interested in this young scallywag, and I feel sure he's
fallen in love with her."
"You wouldn't say that unless you'd some grounds for it," I observed.
"Have you?"
"Nothing that I can personally vouch for," was the reply; "it's only
something that I suspect after putting two and two together. Now,
after hearing you repeat those silly, sentimental expressions that fell
from the reporter's lips, while Pat was treating him to supper, and
speculating on what he may have said to her during the quarter of an
hour you were secreted in the elevator, I feel I have grounds for my
suspicions."
He leaned still further across the desk as he continued. "Now, this
McGinity fellow was in his right mind and senses, take my word for it,
when he called our Pat 'incredulous you,' 'beautiful princess,' and so
on, and also in a perfectly normal state of mind, this morning, when
he turned down my offer to square and hush up last night's
unfortunate affair. I guess Olinski was right. I must have been 'cock-
eyed.' Anyway, the amount I offered him was $50,000. It was a good
bargain, a damned good bargain. What's surprising you?"
"Do you mean to say McGinity turned down such a large offer of
money, which had nothing to do with holding out on the story,
nothing in the nature of a bribe, simply a stated sum in lieu of
damages, say for assault and detention?"
"I do," Henry replied. "The young nincompoop fixed his own price,
and declared he would be well satisfied if he got it."
"And what was that?"
"All he wanted, he said—now, listen carefully to what I'm telling you
—all he wanted was the exclusive rights to the Mars story, the
release terms of which he promised faithfully to obey. As for last
night's occurrences—assault and detention, as you term them—he
simply said: 'Let's forget that.'"
"Is that a fact?" I asked, amazed.
Henry nodded, and continued. "Do you get it? He's in love with our
Pat, or he wouldn't have turned my offer down. Think of it—$50,000.
Enough to start him in the newspaper publishing business on his
own hook."
"Supposing it's true, that a romantic attachment has sprung up
between them, what shall you do?"
"I shall be ruthless," Henry replied, in a stern voice. "Ruthless," he
repeated, and then gazed round the room, rather guiltily, as though
Orkins might be there to hear him.
"By the way," I said. "What's happened to Orkins? I haven't seen him
round the premises since Olinski and McGinity left, shortly after
breakfast?"
"Ah!" said Henry. "That reminds me of another strange occurrence.
Orkins has gone—gone for good."
"Well, that's a queer thing, isn't it?"
"Decidedly queer," Henry concurred. "He came to me quite
unexpectedly this morning and resigned; said he was leaving at
once. No explanation, simply that he was going and wanted his back
pay. I remonstrated about his not giving the usual two weeks' notice,
but he was adamant, so I paid him off and let him go."
"Leaving you no address?"
"No address at all. What do you make of it?"
"It certainly looks queer," I replied. "But I've been rather suspicious of
Orkins from the very start."
"Why?" asked Henry.
"It's always been my opinion," I replied, "that he was mixed up in
some secret, something that we know nothing about. He was too
crafty and reticent to suit me."
"The mere fact that he was crafty and reticent doesn't prove
anything," said Henry.
"Well, then," I said, rather testily, "if Orkins didn't sell you out on the
comet business, who the devil did?"
"I've no idea," said Henry.
"I think it is pretty certain that he also tipped off the Daily Recorder
about your latest discovery, and got well paid for it."
"Even so," said Henry, "these suppositions on your part can have no
possible connection with his leaving so abruptly."
"I've got a notion about that too," I said. "Supposing that he did sell
you out, in both instances, and was assured that his tips would be
treated confidentially, then he must have got scared when McGinity
turned up."
"Scared about what?" asked Henry.
"Well, after what happened to the Daily Recorder reporter last night,
and Orkins must have known about it—you'd be astonished how
quickly news travels among the servants—my idea is that he was
afraid McGinity, in reprisal, would betray his duplicity. So he got away
as quickly as possible to save his face. But it was a foolish thing to
do."
"Foolish?"
"Yes; for newspapers never, under any consideration, betray their
source of news information. I doubt if McGinity himself knew where
the tips came from. He was simply assigned by his City Editor to get
the stories, and Orkins did not figure in them at all as far as he was
concerned."
"At any rate," said Henry, "I'm rather sorry to lose Orkins. While he
had odd ways, I always felt he could be depended upon. He was the
perfect English butler if ever there was one."
"Oh, but he's not English at all," I said. "I learned from one of the
other servants, not so long ago, that he's a Slav by birth, and
acquired his perfect English name, speech and manners during a
long period of buttling in London. By the way, on whose
recommendation did you employ him?"
"Can't say," Henry replied, as he lighted a cigar. "Ah!" he added, after
a thoughtful pause. "I have it! I employed him on Dr. LaRauche's
recommendation, from whom he brought the most exceptional
references. It's not likely, though, that Dr. LaRauche would have any
ulterior reason in wanting me to give his former servant a place."
"After all," I suggested, "there's no getting away from the fact that
Rene LaRauche hates you worse than poison."
"You're wrong, Livingston," said Henry, with emphasis. "Dr.
LaRauche is only suspicious of my scientific achievements. He
regards me as a rank amateur. A top-notch scientist himself, of
international reputation, it is only natural that he should be jealous of
any intrusion upon that which he feels is his own field. But hatred?
Oh, no!"
"If we're going in for mere theorizing," I said, "here's one to cogitate
over. Supposing Orkins, the sly, crafty devil, was a plant in this
house; put here by LaRauche to spy on your scientific research
work? Then what?"
"Well, give me the truth," Henry answered. "Truth's not so easy to
come at in these matters, and I doubt if we shall get any substantial
contribution to your theory. Certainly not by remaining quietly here,
with our hands folded. Come to think of it, LaRauche borrowed a
valuable book of mine more than two years ago, Lowell's 'Mars as
the Abode of Life,' which I should like very much to have him return.
Now, supposing you drop in on him. Haven't the least idea what
you'll get besides the borrowed book, and I doubt if you get that.
Anyhow," he added significantly, "you may find out something—one
way or another."
The curiosity instinct, which was my second nature, rose, strong and
eager, when I heard this announcement. "All right," I said, with a
suddenly roused alertness; "I'll call on LaRauche this afternoon."

IX
It was late in the afternoon when I reached the LaRauche house, a
big, old-fashioned place, which stood within large enclosed grounds
of its own, in a heavily wooded section, on a lonely and unfrequented
road, about three miles south of Sands Cliff village.
Outwardly the residence was shabby, neglected, much in the want of
fresh paint. The grounds in front were grown up with weeds. At the
rear was a level stretch of meadow, backed by woods, which
LaRauche used as a flying field. He owned and operated a small
plane, in which he carried on experiments in wireless and
meteorological observations. Ample private means enabled him to
gratify his tastes to the full in the various fields of scientific research
and exploration.
Astronomy held a particular attraction for him; he was a geologist
and botanist as well. What with one thing and another, his life had
been one long mad quest into the mysteries of the universe, and
some of them he had solved. An astounding genius, if ever there
was one, who was destined, I firmly believed, to spend his last days
in a padded cell.
In appearance, he was a ramrod of a man, with hawk-like features
surmounted by a mass of untidy, bushy white hair. Endowed with
vast energy, he carried his sixty odd years with an air of perpetual
youth and freshness. The man in the street who read of his scientific
explorations into the unknown—recently he had been entertaining
the reading-public with accounts of his plans and preparations to ride
in a rocket to the moon—had no conception of the zeal that
animated him as a scientific investigator, nor knowledge of the
jealous fury that would seize him whenever he was outshone by the
superior success of a fellow scientist.
Hot-headed, violently controversial, always quarrelsome, he had a
malignant way of convulsing the various learned scientific bodies, to
which he belonged, with stinging impeachments of his rivals. He had
a turn for the sensational, which is rare in a man of his genius.
The breach between LaRauche and Henry dated back two years. It
grew out of the first showing by LaRauche of several reels of motion
pictures at the Exploration Club, depicting the life and customs of a
hitherto unknown race of dwarfs, or midgets, he claimed to have
discovered, living in a most primitive state in the jungles of Central
Africa.
Henry and I attended the première, and Henry, in his rather dumb
way, with no intention of wounding the feelings of LaRauche, or
injuring his reputation, voiced his opinion to one of his intimates that
the pictures were fictitious. His chance remark reached the ears of a
member of the board of governors of the club, who made an official
report of it to that body. Secret investigation by the board disclosed
that LaRauche had, indeed, resorted to faking. The official inquiry
revealed that he had recruited a small company of Negro midgets
from Harlem, dressed them in skins of wild beasts and put them
through various African jungle stunts in a wild and wooded section of
New Jersey. The midget tribe he so cleverly portrayed subsisted
mainly on insects, frogs and toads, and their eating live toads was
one of the most realistic and clever fakes I have ever seen.
As a result, LaRauche was expelled from membership for conduct
prejudicial to the club. The fact that the club's action was made
public turned the current of public feeling against him for a time. It
should have covered him with shame and confusion—a very foolish
trick for a scientist of his standing to perpetrate in the declining years
of his career—but he assumed an utterly contemptuous attitude, and
readily admitted once he was cornered that the pictures were
intended as a fake, to fool his rivals in the African exploration field.
Naturally, he blamed Henry for his crushing defeat. There was no
mistaking his ill will thereafter towards my brother, and he
endeavored in many ways to injure Henry's reputation as a scientist.
He wrote him letters, couched in violent terms; called him an
"amateur meddler" in science; he wanted war to the knife. But it
takes two to make a quarrel, and Henry, in his easy way, declined to
enter the controversy.
Another crushing blow to LaRauche was Henry's discovery of the
comet, which increased his rancor and violent antipathy towards my
brother. So it was with no little trepidation that I approached his
house.
Parking my car at the side of the road, I paused a few moments at
the entrance gate to take a rapid, estimating view of the estate,
apparently the only human habitation anywhere about. The grounds
were fenced by a dilapidated hedge, and rows of maples and
poplars.
Suddenly, through the screen of trees, I noticed an old brick house,
set in a hollow, at the base of a hill that sloped gently down from
LaRauche's place. It was set far back from the road, in a clump of
trees, and possessed a considerable range of stables and
outhouses, the possible use of which immediately roused my
curiosity, as there were no indications that farming was being carried
on. It struck me as odd that they should be there. There was a
reason for the several outbuildings I saw on LaRauche's grounds; a
hangar, a small frame building, set between two tall antennae towers
of steel, apparently used for broadcasting, and a glass-domed brick
structure, where, no doubt, he carried on his astronomical
observations.
All this was running through my mind, as I walked up the gravel-path
towards the LaRauche house, when I heard a rustle in the hedge.
Glancing in this direction, I was amazed to see a grizzly bear emerge
from the hedge and make towards me. A cold sweat broke out on
me. I was terrified. I quickened my step, so did the bear, a ferocious-
looking beast. I broke into a run. The bear followed, close on my
heels, in its peculiar loping fashion.
Before I reached the house, a loud, gruff voice, emanating from the
other side of the hedge, stopped the bear's pursuit. I saw a middle-
aged man on the far side of the hedge. From that fleeting glimpse I
had of his general build and swarthy complexion, I judged him to be
an Italian. I was greatly relieved when the bear disappeared through
a hole in the hedge and joined his master on the other side.
But this was not the only unusual and surprising event of that
afternoon. In answer to my ring, the door opened and revealed the
tall, dignified figure of Orkins. I immediately deduced from his
presence there that LaRauche had some hold on him which made
him Orkins' master. I was also convinced that my theory that he had
been planted in our household by LaRauche to spy on Henry's work,
was a very probable one.
I suppose I let my suspicions show themselves in my face, for Orkins
questioned me before I could speak. I was still a little breathless from
running.
"You are no doubt surprised, Mr. Royce, to find me here?" he said.
"Yes—I suppose so," I replied, evasively.
"Dr. LaRauche was kind enough to re-engage me after my leaving
your brother, Henry, so suddenly this morning," he went on. "How did
your brother take it?"
"I prefer not to say anything—about that," I answered. "In fact, I'm
not going to!"
"Yes, yes. I quite understand your attitude, Mr. Royce," he said. "Just
as you like."
"My business is with Dr. LaRauche," I said. "Is he at home?"
"Dr. LaRauche is very busy," Orkins answered, coldly. "He is not
receiving callers today."
"I think he will give me a few minutes' interview on rather urgent
business," I said. "Just give him my card, if you please."
Orkins took my card gingerly, backing away from the doorway as he
glanced at it. He still seemed taken aback, afraid, as though he felt
my business with LaRauche concerned him. I stepped through the
doorway into a small outer hall. "Just so—just so," muttered Orkins.
"It's highly probable that Dr. LaRauche will see you," he added.
"Please wait here," motioning for me to enter the main hall.
After he had vanished up the stairs, I looked from the hall into the
library, a room filled with books from floor to ceiling. I was staring at
this vast array of books with interest when a wisp of a woman
appeared at the head of the stairs. It was Mrs. LaRauche.
"Ah! Mr. Livingston Royce," she said as she came down the stairs.
"You want to see my husband? Well, he's very busy. Why, he hasn't
allowed himself a real night's sleep for several weeks."
Mrs. LaRauche was very much younger than her husband; a slim,
smallish woman of rather sallow complexion, with sandy hair, pale-
blue, restless eyes, and rather untidily dressed.
We shook hands cordially. She had always treated Henry and me
with the most punctilious respect. I had not seen her for about two
years, and I formed the opinion at once that her husband's break
with Henry had not changed her friendly feelings towards us.
I noticed a great change in her. She seemed to have lost her old-
time vivacity. She appeared tired and worn, and had aged
considerably. I felt anxious and perturbed about her. Something, I
was quite sure, had happened. And, of course, it had to do with her
husband.
There was an atmosphere of mystery about her and the house, and
it was further deepened when Mrs. LaRauche led me from the hall
into the library. She gave me the impression at once of one who lives
in constant fear. There was a sign of caution and watchfulness in her
eyes, expressed in nervous, terrified glances over her shoulder.
"I'm sure you won't mind my asking if your business with my
husband is so very important?" she began in a low, tremulous voice.
"You see—" She stopped and turned at what seemed to be the
sound of footfalls on the stairs. There was a look of terror in her
eyes.
"It isn't," I interrupted. "I've merely called, at my brother's request, to
ask Dr. LaRauche for the return of Professor Lowell's book on Mars
which he borrowed more than two years ago."
She looked greatly relieved. "I'm so glad," she breathed. "Rene goes
into a perfect rage if he's interrupted. He's been very upset all
morning, but still continues at his work. What he's working on, I
haven't the slightest idea."
"Probably working on that rocket to the moon idea," I suggested,
smiling.
"Completely mysterious to me," she rejoined.
"You've heard, of course, of my brother's latest discovery?" I
ventured.
"No," she replied. "I've heard nothing. My mind has been occupied
all morning wondering what's brought Orkins back to us. I've always
disliked and distrusted him intensely."
Not feeling free to explain the circumstances, or cloud, under which
Orkins had left our household, I glanced out the window. "Your house
is in a very lonely location," I observed. "I hope you do not go out
much alone. You seem to have some queer animals roaming about. I
was chased by a grizzly bear as I walked through your grounds."
Mrs. LaRauche shuddered. "Oh, that terrible beast!" she muttered. "I
never go out at night by myself on account of that bear. He's not
vicious at all, really a pet, but it's frightening to run into him. Often I
hear him, in the dead of night, clawing at our doors, whimpering and
growling, and trying to get in."
"Who owns the animal?" I inquired.
"He belongs to our disreputable neighbor, Antonio Ranzetti," she
replied, "an Italian animal trainer, who rented and took possession,
much against our wishes, of that old brick house in the hollow. Rene
would have bought the place, had we known, rather than suffer the
annoyance of living next to a menagerie."
"Is it as bad as all that?"
She nodded. "He has a large collection of wild animals in the house
and outbuildings, which he is training for the circus," she explained,
"and he's just about as secretive in his work as Rene in his scientific
researches. He's one of the most expert animal trainers in the world,
I believe."
Then she suddenly remembered the book I was after. "I'm sure my
husband did not keep your brother's book intentionally," she said.
"He's very forgetful of what he calls trivialities." She walked over to a
disordered desk, and with a sharp exclamation, picked up the book
from among a row of volumes on top of it. "There you are!" she said.
My back was turned towards the door into the hall as I took the book,
and expressed my thanks for its return. I was just on the point of
departure, seeing I had no further excuse to remain on the premises,
when I saw her start, and turn pale. Turning round quickly, I faced Dr.
LaRauche, as he entered the library. In looks, he was about the
angriest looking man I had ever encountered.
"Ah, Dr. LaRauche!" I said, without turning a hair.
He made no reply, just stood there, glaring, and inspecting me from
top to toe. Finally, he spoke. "I know what's brought you here,
Livingston Royce," he said. "I expected it."
Coming out of her cowering fright, and finding her voice, Mrs.
LaRauche broke in falteringly. "Mr. Royce came after the Lowell book
on Mars you borrowed from his brother, Henry, more than—"
A contemptuous exclamation cut her short. "Something more than
the borrowed book brought him here," LaRauche said.
"What, for instance?" I asked him, point-blank.
"There's no doubt in my mind that your cunning brother sent you
here to spy on me, on my work in its possible relation to his own, and
to find out why I reengaged Orkins. But you haven't learned very
much, have you?"
"To tell you the truth, I haven't," I replied, nonchalantly. "I'm not the
sort of person gifted to see through a brick wall."
"Well, as you haven't found out anything," LaRauche thundered, "the
next best thing to do is to go home, and report to your meddlesome
brother that you haven't." As he concluded, he waved a hand
towards the door.
With a polite bow, I withdrew, and left the house. I had not gone
many yards down the gravel-path, when a woman's cry tore the air, a
smothered cry of terrorized anguish. The sound died away without
repetition. I passed on, convinced that some evil had befallen Mrs.
LaRauche. There was more mystery in this house than I had at first
imagined.
No success having materialized from the real motive of my visit,
which LaRauche, with uncanny intuition, had so rightly surmised, I
returned to the castle, and told Henry all that had occurred. He
laughed heartily when I narrated my encounter with the grizzly bear.
As for the secret work LaRauche was at present engaged on, and
Orkins' possible connection with it, I was bound to admit that I had
made little headway in obtaining any accurate information.