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New Journal of Physics

Transient lasing without inversion

Anatoly A. Svidzinsky, Luqi Yuan, Marlan O. Scully

Published May 29, 2013• 39 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It has been known for two decades that coherence can yield lasing without inversion (LWI), which could be useful for making lasers at shorter wavelength. However, excitation of extreme ultraviolet and x-ray atomic transitions typically requires a plasma medium with rapid collisions, which destroy atomic coherence. Here we demonstrate LWI on a time scale shorter than the decoherence time. We show that in such a regime LWI is possible in a V -scheme with a strong coherent drive on the low-frequency transition and obtain an analytical expression for the gain of the laser pulse at high frequency. We propose an experiment in which such LWI can be realized in He plasma.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/15/5/053044

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It has been known for two decades that coherence can yield lasing without inversion (LWI), which could be useful for making lasers at shorter wavelength. However, excitation of extreme ultraviolet and x-ray atomic transitions typically requires a plasma medium with rapid collisions, which destroy atomic coherence. Here we demonstrate LWI on a time scale shorter than the decoherence time. We show that in such a regime LWI is possible in a V -scheme with a strong coherent drive on the low-frequency transition and obtain an analytical expression for the gain of the laser pulse at high frequency. We propose an experiment in which such LWI can be realized in He plasma.
Lasing without inversion (LWI) in the extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) has been the focus of recent research of our Princeton/Texas group. Because of the restriction imposed on the decay rates associated with the usual LWI schemes, it is difficult to transfer the physics gleaned from previous experiments to the XUV. However, with the advent of tunable-ultrashort-high-power laser pulses, we find that the possibility of transient LWI holds promise for a different LWI paradigm in which the lasing is based on forbidden and/or virtual transitions. It is the purpose of the present paper to present simple but (hopefully) convincing arguments and suggest realistic experiments to stimulate interest in this idea.
We suggest a method to generate coherent short pulses by generating a frequency comb using lasing without inversion in the transient regime. We use a universal method to study the propagation of a pulse in various spectral regions through an active medium that is strongly driven on a low-frequency transition on a time scale shorter than the decoherence time. The results show gain on the sidebands at different modes can be produced even if there is no initial population inversion prepared. Besides the production of ultrashort pulses this frequency comb may have applications towards making short-wavelength or terahertz lasers.
The most commonly used lasers operate with population inversion. This requires an incoherent pumping power (from lamps, electrical discharges, etc.) that rapidly scales with the frequency of the generated laser radiation. In practice, this is the main obstacle for the operation in the continuous-wave regime of short-wavelength lasers in the UV, X-rays, etc. But lasers can also operate without population inversion using atomic coherences excited in the laser medium by coherent pumping with another laser. We present in this paper a short review of the field of lasing without inversion (LWI). In particular, we summarize the basic physics of LWI in the framework of both semiclassical theory and quantumjump formalism to describe light-matter interaction. We also review the experimental state-of-the-art in LWI. Most proof-of-principle demonstrations of LWI have used atomic vapours, so far. But recently gain without inversion (a pre-requisite for lasing) has been observed also in a technologically relevant medium: semiconductor nanostructures that can be tailored to have “artificial atom” electron states.
This work is focused on quantum coherence and superradiant emission in a dense pencil-like multi-level medium where many novel effects appear such as transient lasing without inversion, coherence-brightened sky laser, and quantum amplification by superradiant emission of radiation. \n\nWe start from an interesting cascade model where quantum coherence effects can lead to surprising phenomena, gain without population inversion and gain suppression, under different parameters. We further show superradiant emission inside helium plasma. The population evolution shows the decay is significantly faster than collisional decoherence and spontaneous decay rates. This indicates superradiant coherent behavior of the atomic system inside the plasma.\n\nBased on these results, we demonstrate lasing without inversion on a time scale shorter than the decoherence time. The possibility of transient lasing without inversion holds promise for lasing in the extreme-ultraviolet/x-ray regime. We propose experiments to demonstrate this in helium or helium-like ions plasma. \n\nWe also study coherent emission from ambient air and demonstrate efficient generation of laser-like beams directed both forward and backward with respect to a nanosecond ultraviolet pumping laser beam. The emission process exhibits nonadiabatic quantum coherence, which is similar in nature to Dicke superradiance. This coherence-brightened backward light source in air provides possibility for atmospheric remote sensing through a phase-matched coherent Raman scattering process.\n\nFinally, we present a new kind of quantum amplifier, the QASER (quantum amplification by superradiant emission of radiation), based on collective superradiant emission which does not require initial population in the excited state. We show that parametric resonance between the driving field and collective superradiant oscillations of the atomic polarization can yield light amplification at high frequencies. The resulting superradiant amplifier is many orders of magnitude more efficient than nonlinear multiphoton excitation and holds promise as a new way to generate high-frequency coherent radiation.
It was shown some time ago that when the excitation of an ensemble of two-level atoms is swept in the direction of lasing, so that atoms are prepared in the excited state just as the radiation from previously excited atoms reaches them, the resulting laser amplifier is “highly anomalous” and yields superradiant emission without population inversion. We here show that transient gain in a three-level system has common features with Dicke superradiance and can yield strong extreme ultraviolet lasing in, for example, He atoms (at 58 nm) or He-like ions such asB3+(at 6.1 nm).