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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Gain-saturation gratings with an arbitrary diffusion rate of excited states

B. Jaskorzyńska, Evgeny V. Vanin, Sten Helmfrid

Published Mar 1, 1998• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Gain-saturation gratings, induced by the interaction between the active medium and standing waves in laser cavities, influence the performance of lasers. The modulation depth of the grating is reduced by diffusion of the excitation energy in most host materials, but gain saturation has been modeled only in the limit of strong or weak diffusion. We present an analytical solution of the diffusion equation for two-level systems at an arbitrary diffusion rate. It is shown that for many rare-earth dopants the migration process is not well described by either the weak- or the strong-diffusion approximation.

DOI
10.1364/josab.15.000945

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Gain-saturation gratings, induced by the interaction between the active medium and standing waves in laser cavities, influence the performance of lasers. The modulation depth of the grating is reduced by diffusion of the excitation energy in most host materials, but gain saturation has been modeled only in the limit of strong or weak diffusion. We present an analytical solution of the diffusion equation for two-level systems at an arbitrary diffusion rate. It is shown that for many rare-earth dopants the migration process is not well described by either the weak- or the strong-diffusion approximation.
We describe a general numerical method for calculating short-pulse laser propagation in rare-earth-doped materials, which are very important as gain materials for solid-state lasers, fiber lasers and optical amplifiers. The split-step, finite difference method simultaneously calculates changes in the laser pulse as it propagates through the material and calculates the dynamic populations of the rare-earth energy levels at any position within the material and for times during and after the laser pulse has passed through the material. Many traditional theoretical and numerical analyses of laser pulse propagation involve approximations and assumptions that limit their applicability to a narrow range of problems. Our numerical method, however, is more comprehensive and includes the processes of single- and multi-photon absorption, excited state absorption (ESA), energy transfer, upconversion, stimulated emission, cross relaxation, radiative relaxation and non-radiative relaxation. In the models, the rare-earth dopants can have an arbitrary number of energy levels. We are able to calculate the electron population density of every electronic level as a function of, for example, pulse energy, dopant concentration and sample thickness. We compare our theoretical results to published experimental results for rare-earth ions such as Er3+, Yb3+, Tm3+ and Ho3+.
The rate equation for the population inversion of homogeneously broadened 4-level lasers is solved for the cases of small and large mobility of excited states. Considered are drift and diffusion, i.e., collective and random motions along the laser axis. Both drift and diffusion smooth spatial holes which are burned into the population inversion by standing-wave fields. A drift results also in a drag effect, i.e., a phase lag between the population inversion and the standing-wave field. For homogeneously broadened lasers, sufficient smoothing of spatial holes will result in spontaneous full-power single-frequency operation. This is examined by calculating the unsaturated gains of secondary modes as a function of the excitation, drift, and diffusion parameters. Spatial hole burning is insignificant for gas lasers because of their large carrier diffusion. Furthermore, ionic drift in gas-ion lasers alone could effectively quench spatial hole burning. This is in contrast to dye lasers where drifts, i.e., longitudinal flow rates of the order of the sound velocity, would be required to obtain a single-frequency output. In solid-state lasers like ruby and Nd: YAG, energy diffusion between lattice sites is shown to significantly reduce spatial hole depths although the matrix elements for the exchange are quite small. An experiment is described which confirms the theory and allows the measurement of small diffusion constants of excited laser states. For the 4F3/2 level in Nd: YAG a value of 5×10−7 cm2/sec is obtained. This energy exchange among Nd3+ sites contributes 0.3 GHz to the homogeneous linewidth. Implications for axial mode selection and single-frequency oscillation of various lasers are discussed.
Using Lamb's model, we analyze the effects of gain saturation by strong traveling-wave fields in dilute laser media. Using approximate solutions of an integral equation for the population inversion density (PID), the index of refraction and incremental gain are studied for arbitrarily strong fields. Effects of atomic motion are included for a Maxwellian velocity distribution, but pressure effects are neglected. The case of a monochromatic field leads to the saturation results of Gordon, White, and Rigden, which are studied as a function of frequency. For a small ratio of natural to Doppler linewidths, there is a transition from inhomogeneous to homogeneous broadening for sufficiently strong fields. An effect of particular interest is the generation of waves at $2{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, $2{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$, and higher order sidebands by two strong input signals at ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$ and ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$. The source of the parametric gain at these frequencies is the time-dependent gain saturation due to the presence of multiple strong fields. For ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$ small compared to the decay rates ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{a}$ and ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{b}$ of the laser levels, the gain at these intermodulation sidebands is computed as a function of the field strengths. The limiting cases of homogeneous and inhomogeneous (due to atomic motion) broadening are studied in detail. These two cases give essentially the same results, for a given unsaturated gain. Numerical results indicate that a first-order side-band intensity at least 10% as large as that of the inducing fields can be easily observed in practice. The integral equation for the PID is converted into an infinite set of linear algebraic equations for a typical solid-state laser. The conditions under which this set of equations can be limited to a finite number is discussed, and the dependence of the sideband gain on ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$ is calculated. For large ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, the gain at the mthm\mathrm{th}mth sideband decreases as ${({\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2})}^{\ensuremath{-}m}$.
Using Lamb's model, we analyze the effects of gain saturation by strong traveling-wave fields in dilute laser media. Using approximate solutions of an integral equation for the population inversion density (PID), the index of refraction and incremental gain are studied for arbitrarily strong fields. Effects of atomic motion are included for a Maxwellian velocity distribution, but pressure effects are neglected. The case of a monochromatic field leads to the saturation results of Gordon, White, and Rigden, which are studied as a function of frequency. For a small ratio of natural to Doppler linewidths, there is a transition from inhomogeneous to homogeneous broadening for sufficiently strong fields. An effect of particular interest is the generation of waves at $2{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, $2{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$, and higher order sidebands by two strong input signals at ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}$ and ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$. The source of the parametric gain at these frequencies is the time-dependent gain saturation due to the presence of multiple strong fields. For ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$ small compared to the decay rates ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{a}$ and ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{b}$ of the laser levels, the gain at these intermodulation sidebands is computed as a function of the field strengths. The limiting cases of homogeneous and inhomogeneous (due to atomic motion) broadening are studied in detail. These two cases give essentially the same results, for a given unsaturated gain. Numerical results indicate that a first-order side-band intensity at least 10% as large as that of the inducing fields can be easily observed in practice. The integral equation for the PID is converted into an infinite set of linear algebraic equations for a typical solid-state laser. The conditions under which this set of equations can be limited to a finite number is discussed, and the dependence of the sideband gain on ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$ is calculated. For large ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, the gain at the mthm\mathrm{th}mth sideband decreases as ${({\ensuremath{\omega}}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2})}^{\ensuremath{-}m}$.
Nonlinear optics normally involves the change in the susceptibility of a material due to the presence of optical radiation. In many cases, the light-matter interaction produces a change in the refractive index of the medium, as occurs in photorefractive media, as well as in Kerr-like media, Brillouin-active media and absorbing media with thermallyinduced refractive index changes. Such nonlinear refractive index variation corresponds to a change in the real part of the optical susceptibility %. In resonant materials, the optical radiation induces stimulated emission (or absorption) causing transfer of population between different energy states of the medium. This can lead to saturation of the amplification (or absorption) corresponding to changes in the imaginary part of the susceptibility x= i2odk where the amplitude gain coefficient a(I) is a saturable function of the intensity /, and k is the magnitude of the wavevector of the optical radiation. The interference of two (or more) coherent beams I(x) in the laser amplifier can cause a modulation of the population inversion N(x). This modulation of the inversion is commonly known as spatial hole burning in lasers and leads to formation of a gain-grating a(x) = 1/2GN(X) where G is the stimulated emission cross-section. The gain grating can act as a very efficient diffractive optical element exhibiting high diffraction efficiency that may be even greater than unity [16] and also very high phase conjugate reflectivity using four-wave mixing (FWM) geometries [5-7].