Chapter 7

Lasers

After having derived the quantum mechanically correct suszeptibility for an

inverted atomic system that can provide gain, we can use the two-level model
to study the laser and its dynamics. After discussing the laser concept briefly
we will investigate various types of gain media, gas, liquid and solid-state,
that can be used to construct lasers and amplifiers. Then the dynamics of
lasers, threshold behavior, steady state behavior and relaxation oscillations
are discussed. A short introduction in the generation of high energy and
ultrashort laser pulses using Q-switching and mode locking will be given at
the end.

7.1 The Laser (Oscillator) Concept

Since the invention of the vacuum amplifier tube by Robert von Lieben and
Lee de Forest in 1905/06 it was known how to amplify electromagnetic waves
over a broad wavelength range and how to build oscillator with which such
waves could be generated. This was extended into the millimeter wave re-
gion with advances in amplifier tubes and later solid-state devices such as
transistors. Until the 1950’s thermal radiation sources were mostly used to
generate electromagnetic waves in the optical frequency range. The gener-
ation of coherent optical waves was only made possible by the Laser. The
first amplifier based on discrete energy levels (quantum amplifier) was the
MASER (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation),
which was invented by Gordon, Townes and Zeiger 1954. In 1958 Schawlow
and Townes proposed to extend the MASER principle to the optical regime.

293
294 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

The amplification should arise from stimulated emission between discrete en-
ergy levels that must be inverted, as discussed in the last section. Amplifiers
and oscillators based on this principle are called LASER (Light Amplification
by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Maiman was the first to demonstrate
a laser based on the solid-state laser material Ruby.

Figure 7.1: Theodore Maiman with the first Ruby Laser in 1960 and a cross
sectional view of the first device [4].

The first HeNe-Laser, a gas laser followed in 1961. It is a gas laser built
by Ali Javan at MIT, with a wavelength of 632.8 nm and a linewidth of only
10kHz.
The basic principle of an oscillator is a feedback circuit that is unstable,
i.e. there is positive feedback at certain frequencies or certain frequency
ranges, see Figure 7.2. It is the feedback circuit that determines the frequency
of oscillation. Once the oscillation starts, the optical field will build up to
an intensity approaching, or even surpassing, the saturation intensity of the
amplifier medium by many times, until the amplifier gain is reduced to a
value equal to the losses that the signal experiences after one roundtrip in
the feedback loop, see Figure 7.3
7.1. THE LASER (OSCILLATOR) CONCEPT 295

Figure 7.2: Principle of an oscillator circuit: an amplifier with positive feed-

back [6] p. 495.

Figure 7.3: Saturation of amplification with increasing signal power leads to

a stable oscillation [6], p. 496.

In the radio frequency range the feedback circuit can be an electronic

feedback circuit. At optical frequencies we use an optical resonator, which
is in most cases well modeled as a one-dimensional Fabry-Perot resonator,
which we analysed in depth in section 7.4. We already found back then that
the transfer characterisitcs of a Fabry-Perot resonator can be understood as
a feedback structure. All we need to do to construct an oscillator is provide
amplification in the feedback loop, i.e. to compensate in the resonator for
eventual internal losses or the losses due to the output coupling via the mir-
rors of the Fabry-Perot, see Figure 7.4.We have already discussed in section
296 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

2.6.2 various optical resonators, which have Gaussian beams as the funda-
mental resonator modes. One can also use waveguides or fibers that have
semitransparent mirrors at its ends or form rings as laser resonators. In the
latter ones output coupling of radiation is achieved with waveguide or fiber
couplers in the rings.
Today lasers generating light continuosly or in the form of long, nanosec-
ond, or very short, femtosecond pulses can be built. Typically these lasers
are Q-switched or mode-locked, respectively. The average power level can
vary from microwatt to kilowatts.

Figure 7.4: A laser consists of an optical resonator where the internal losses
and/or the losses due to partially reflecting mirrors are compensated by a
gain medium inside the resonator [6], p. 496.

7.2 Laser Gain Media

Important characteristics of laser gain media are whether it is a solid, a
gase or liquid, how inversion can be achieved and what the spectroscopic
paratmeters are, i.e. upperstate lifetime, τ L = T1 , linewdith ∆fF W HM = T22
and the crosssection for stimulated emission.

7.2.1 Three and Four Level Laser Media

As we discussed before inversion can not be achieved in a two level system
by optical pumping. The coherent regime is typically inaccesible by typcial
optical pump sources. Inversion by optical pumping can only be achieved
when using a three or four-level system, see Figures 7.5 and 7.6
7.2. LASER GAIN MEDIA 297

a) b)
2 N2 2 N2

γ γ
Rp 21 Rp 21

1 N1 1 N1

γ γ
10 10
0 N0 0 N0

Figure 7.5: Three-level laser medium.

3 N
3
γ32
2 N2

Rp γ 21

1 N1
γ10
0 N0

Figure 7.6: Four-level laser medium.

If the medium is in thermal equilibrium, typically only the ground state is

occupied. By optical pumping with an intense lamp (flash lamp) or another
laser one can pump a significant fraction of the atoms from the ground state
with population N0 into the excited state N3 both for the three level laser
operating according to scheme shown in figure 297 (a) or N4 in the case
298 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

of the four level laser, see Figure 7.6. If the relaxation rate γ 10 is very
fast compared to γ 21 , where the laser action should occur inversion can be
achieved, i.e. N2 > N1 . For the four level laser the relaxation rate γ 32 should
also be fast in comparison to γ 21 . These systems are easy to analyze in the rate
equation approximation, where the dipole moments are already adiabatically
eliminated. For example, for the three level system in Figure 7.5 a). we obtain
the rate equations of the three level system in analogy to the two-level system

d
N2 = −γ 21 N2 − σ 21 (N2 − N1 ) Iph + Rp (7.1)
dt
d
N1 = −γ 10 N1 + γ 21 N2 + σ 21 (N2 − N1 ) Iph (7.2)
dt
d
N0 = γ 10 N1 − Rp (7.3)
dt
Here, σ 21 is the cross section for stimulated emission between the levels 2 and
1 and Iph is the photon flux at the transition frequency f21 .In most cases,
there are any atoms available in the ground state such that optical pumping
can never deplete the number of atoms in the ground state N0 . That is why
we can assume a constant pump rate Rp . If the relaxation rate γ 10 is much
faster than γ 21 and the number of possible stimulated emission events that
can occur σ 21 (N2 − N1 ) Iph , then we can set N1 = 0 and obtain only a rate
equation for the upper laser level
µ ¶
d Rp
N2 = −γ 21 N2 − − σ 21 N2 · Iph . (7.4)
dt γ 21
This equation is identical to the equation for the inversion of the two-level
system, see Eq.(6.125). Here, γRp is the equilibrium upper state population
21
in the absence of photons, γ 21 = τ1L is the inverse upper state lifetime due to
radiative and non radiative processes.
Note, a similar analysis can be done for the three level laser operating
according to the scheme shown in Figure 7.5 (b). Then the relaxation rate
from level 3 to level 2, which is now the upper laser level has to be fast. But
in addition the optical pumping must be so strong that essentially all the
ground state levels are depleted. Undepleted groundstate populations would
always lead to absorption of laser radiation.
In the following we want to discuss the electronic structure of a few often
encountered laser media. A detail description of laser media can be found in
[7].
7.3. TYPES OF LASERS 299

7.3 Types of Lasers

7.3.1 Gas Lasers
Helium-Neon Laser
The HeNe-Laser is the most widely used noble gas laser. Lasing can be
achieved at many wavelength 632.8nm (543.5nm, 593.9nm, 611.8nm, 1.1523μm,
1.52μm, 3.3913μm). Pumping is achieved by electrical discharge, see Figure
7.7.

Figure 7.7: Energy level diagram of the transistions involved in the HeNe
laser [9].

The helium is excited by electron impact. The energy is then transfered

to Neon by collisions. The first HeNe laser operated at the 1.1523μm line [8].
HeNe lasers are used in many applications such as interferometry, holography,
spectroscopy, barcode scanning, alignment and optical demonstrations.
300 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

Argon and Krypton Ion Lasers

Similar to the HeNe-laser the Argon ion gas laser is pumped by electric dis-
charge and emitts light at wavelength: 488.0nm, 514.5nm, 351nm, 465.8nm,
472.7nm, 528.7nm.It is used in applications ranging from retinal photother-
apy for diabetes, lithography, and pumping of other lasers.
The Krypton ion gas laser is analogous to the Argon gas laser with wave-
length: 416nm, 530.9nm, 568.2nm, 647.1nm, 676.4nm, 752.5nm, 799.3nm.
Pumped by electrical discharge. Applications range from scientific research.
When mixed with argon it can be used as "white-light" lasers for light shows.

Carbon Lasers
In the carbon dioxide (CO2 ) gas laser the laser transistions are related to
vibrational-rotational excitations. CO2 lasers are highly efficient approaching
30%. The main emission wavelengths are 10.6μm and 9.4μm. They are
pumped by transverse (high power) or longitudinal (low power) electrical
discharge. It is heavily used in the material processing industry for cutting,
and welding of steel and in the medical area for surgery.
Carbon monoxide (CO) gas laser: Wavelength 2.6 - 4μm, 4.8 - 8.3μm
pumped by electrical discharge. Also used in material processing such as
engraving and welding and in photoacoustic spectroscopy. Output powers as
high as 100kW have been demonstrated.

Excimer Lasers:
Chemical lasers emitting in the UV: 193nm (ArF), 248nm (KrF), 308nm
(XeCl), 353nm (XeF) excimer (excited dimer). These are molecules that
exist only if one of the atoms is electronically excited. Without excitation
the two atoms repell each other. Thus the electronic groundstate is not stable
and is therefore not populated, which is ideal for laser operation. These lasers
are used for ultraviolet lithography in the semiconductor industry and laser
surgery.

7.3.2 Dye Lasers:

The laser gain medium are organic dyes in solution of ethyl, methyl alcohol,
glycerol or water. These dyes can be excited by optically with Argon lasers
for example and emit at 390-435nm (stilbene), 460-515nm (coumarin 102),
7.3. TYPES OF LASERS 301

570-640 nm (rhodamine 6G) and many others. These lasers have been widely
used in research and spectroscopy because of there wide tuning ranges. Un-
fortunately, dyes are carcinogenic and as soon as tunable solid state laser
media became available dye laser became extinct.

7.3.3 Solid-State Lasers

Ruby Laser
The first laser was indeed a solid-state laser: Ruby emitting at 694.3nm
[5]. Ruby consists of the naturally formed crystal of aluminum oxide (Al2 O3 )
called corundum. In that crystal some of Al3+ ions are replaced by Cr3+ ions.
Its the chromium ions that give Ruby the pinkish color, i.e. its flourescence,
which is related to the laser transisitons, see the level structure in Figure 7.8.
Ruby is a three level laser.

Figure 7.8: Energy level diagram for Ruby, [2], p. 13.

Today, for the manufacturing of ruby as a laser material, artificially grown

302 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

crystals from molten material which crystalizes in the form of sapphire is

used. The liftetime of the upper laser level is 3ms. Pumping is usually
achieved with flashlamps, see Figure 7.1.

Neodymium YAG (Nd:YAG)

Neodymium YAG consists of Yttrium-Aluminium-Garnet (YAG) Y3 Al5 O12
in which some of the Y3+ ions are replaced by Nd3+ ions. Neodymium is a
rare earth element, where the active electronic states are shielded inner 4f
states. Nd:YAG is a four level laser, see Figure ??.

Figure 7.9: Energy level diagram for Nd:YAG, [3], p. 370.

The main emission of Nd:YAG is at 1.064μm. Another line with consider-

able less gain is at 1.32μm. Initially Nd:YAG was flashlamp pumped. Today,
much more efficient pumping is possible with laser diodes and diode arrays.
Diode pumped versions which can be very compact and efficient become a
competition for the CO2 laser in material processing, range finding, surgery,
pumping of other lasers in combination with frequency doubling to produce
a green 532nm beam).
Neodymium can also be doped in a host of other crystals such as YLF
(Nd:YLF) emitting at 1047μm, YVO4 (Nd:YVO) emitting at 1.064μm, glass
(Nd:Glass) at 1.062μm (Silicate glasses), 1.054μm (Phosphate glasses). Glass
lasers have been used to build extremely high power (Terawatt), high energy
(Megajoules) multiple beam systems for inertial confinement fusion. The big
advantage of glass is that it can be fabricated on meter scale which is hard
or even impossible to do with crystalline materials.
7.3. TYPES OF LASERS 303

Other rare earth elements are Er3+ , Tm3+ , Ho3+ , Er3+ , which have em-
mission lines at 1.53μm and in the 2-3μm range.

Ytterbium YAG (Yb:YAG)

Ytterbium YAG is a quasi three level laser, see Figure 303 emitting at
1.030μm. The lower laser level is only 500-600cm−1 (60meV) above the
ground state and is therefore at room temperature heavily thermally popu-
lated. The laser is pumped at 941 or 968nm with laser diodes to provide the
high brighness pumping needed to achieve gain.

Figure 7.10: Energy level diagram of Yb:YAG, [3], p. 374.

However, Yb:YAG has many advantages over other laser materials:

• Very low quantum defect, i.e. difference between the photon energy
necessary for pumping and photon energy of the emitted radiation,
(hfP − hfL ) /hfP ˜ 9%.

• long radiative lifetime of the upper laser level, i.e. much energy can be
stored in the crystal.

• high doping levels can be used without upper state lifetime quenching

• broad emission bandwidth of ∆fF W HM = 2.5THz enabling the genera-

tion of sub-picosecond pulses
304 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

• with cryogenic cooling Yb:YAG becomes a four level laser.

Due to the low quantum defect and the good thermal properties of YAG,
Yb:YAG lasers approaching an optical to optical efficiency of 80% and a wall
plug efficiency of 40% have been demonstrated.

Titanium Sapphire (Ti:sapphire)

In contrast to Neodymium, which is a rare earth element, Titanium is a
transition metal. The Ti3+ ions replace a certain fraction of the Al3+ ions in
sapphire (Al2 O3 ). In transistion metal lasers, the laser active electronic states
are outer 3s electrons which couple strongly to lattice vibrations. These lat-
tice vibrations lead to strong line broadening. Therefore, Ti:sapphire has an
extremely broad amplification linewidth ∆fF W HM ≈ 100THz. Ti:sapphire
can provide gain from 650-1080nm. Therefore, this material is used in to-
days highly-tunable or very short pulse laser systems and amplifiers. Once
Ti:sapphire was developed it rapidly replaced the dye laser systems. Figure
7.11 shows the absorption and emission bands of Ti:sapphire for polarization
along its optical axis (π−polarization).

Figure 7.11: Absorption and flourescence spectra of Ti:sapphire, [10]

7.3. TYPES OF LASERS 305

7.3.4 Semiconductor Lasers

An important class of solid-state lasers are semiconductor lasers. Depending
on the semiconductor material used the emission wavelength can be further
refined by using bandstructure engineering, 0.4 μm (GaN) or 0.63-1.55 μm
(AlGaAs, InGaAs, InGaAsP) or 3-20 μm (lead salt). The AlGaAs based
lasers in the wavelength range 670nm-780 nm are used in compact disc players
and therefore are the most common and cheapest lasers in the world. In the
semiconductor laser the electronic bandstructure is exploited, which arises
from the periodic crystal potential, see problem set. The energy eigenstates
can be characterized by the periodic crystal quasi momentum vector k, see
Figure

Conduction band

Band Gap

Valence band

Figure 7.12: (a) Energy level diagram of the electronic states in a crystaline
solid-state material. There is usually a highest occupied band, the valence
band and a lowest unoccupied band the conduction band. Electronics states
in a crystal can usually be characterized by their quasi momentum k. b) The
valence and conduction band are separated by a band gap.

Since the momentum carried along by an optical photon is very small

compared to the momentum of the electrons in the crystal lattice, transistions
of an electron from the valence band to the conduction band occur essentially
vertically, see Figure 7.13 (a).
306 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

Optical
Transition Unoccupied states
“Holes”

Figure 7.13: (a) At thermal equilibrium the valence band is occupied and the
conduction band is unoccupied. Optical transistions occur vertically under
momentum conservation, since the photon momentum is negligible compared
to the momentum of the electrons. (b) To obtain amplification, the medium
must be inverted, i.e. electrones must be accumulated in the conduction
band and empty states in the valence band. The missing electron behave as
a positively charged particles called holes.

Inversion, i.e. electrons in the conduction band and empty states in the
valence band, holes, see Figure 7.13 (b) can be achieved by creating a pn-
junction diode and forward biasing, see Figure 7.14.
7.3. TYPES OF LASERS 307

P - doped N - doped

Acceptors Conduction band

Energy

Valence band Donors

Position

Figure 7.14: Forward biased pn-junction laser diode. Electrons and holes
are injected into the space charge region of a pn-junction and emit light by
recombination.

When forward-biased electrons and holes are injected into the space charge
region. The carriers recombine and emit the released energy in the form of
photons with an energy roughly equal to the band gap energy. A sketch of a
typical pn-junction diode laser is shown in Figure 7.15.

Figure 7.15: Typical broad area pn-homojunction laser, [3], p. 397.

The devices can be further refined by using heterojunctions so that the

carriers are precisely confined to the region of the waveguide mode, see Figure
308 CHAPTER 7. LASERS

Figure 7.16: a) Refractive index profile. b) transverse beam profile, and c)

band structure (shematic) of a double-heterostructure diode laser, [3], p. 399.

7.3.5 Quantum Cascade Lasers

A new form of semiconductor lasers was predicted in the 70’s by the two
russian physicists Kazarinov and Suris that is based only on one kind of
electrical carriers. These are most often chosen to be electrons because of
there higher mobility. This laser is therefore a unipolar device in contrast to
the conventional semiconductor laser that uses both electrons and holes. the
transitions are intraband transistions. A layout of a quantum cascade laser
is shown in Figure 7.17.
7.3. TYPES OF LASERS 309

Figure 7.17: Quantum Cascade laser layout.

Like semiconductor lasers these lasers are electrically pumped. The first
laser of this type was realized in 1994 by Federico Capasso’s group at Bell
Laboratories [9], 23 years after the theoretical prediction. The reason for this
is the difficult layer growth, that are only possible using advanced semicon-
ductor growth capabilities such as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and more
recently metal oxide chemical vapor depostion (MOCVD). Lasers have been
demostrated in the few THz range [13] up to the 3.5μm region.
Some of the most important spectroscopic parameters of often used laser
media are summarized in table 7.1.

7.3.6 Homogeneous and Inhomogeneous Broadening

Laser media are also distinguished by the line broadening mechanisms in-
volved. Very often it is the case that the linewidth observed in the absorption
or emission spectrum is not only due to dephasing process that are acting on