The process of two-photon amplification of ultrashort pulses is analysed for the case where simultaneous single-photon ionisation occurs from the upper resonant level.
Propagation and amplification of an ultrashort laser pulse in a two-level medium is numerically investigated with the use of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) procedure simultaneously solving Maxwell and Schrodinger equations with no assumptions characteristic of slowly varying envelope approximation. Comparison of the results of FDTD numerical simulations with the predictions of the pulse area theorem has demonstrated that the developed numerical procedure provides an adequate description of pulse evolution in a two-level medium. Amplification of ultrashort light pulses in a two-level medium is analyzed. Two methods of improving the gain of ultrashort pulses in a two-level medium by modulating the spatial distribution of dipole moments of resonant transitions and using initially chirped frequency-detuned pulses are explored.
An expression is derived for the amount of two-photon ionisation produced by sub-nanosecond laser pulses under resonance conditions. On this time scale damping effects can be neglected and the ionisation probability becomes proportional to the cube of the pulse duration. A similar prediction for resonance multiphoton processes of higher order leads to a qualitative agreement with recent experimental observations. Finally, it is demonstrated that the same result can be obtained from a simple analysis of a two-step model.