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Journal of physics. A, Proceedings of the Physical Society. General

The intensity of a single-mode gas laser as a function of cavity Q

M D Sayers, L. Allen, D.G.C. Jones

Published Jan 1, 1968• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The single-mode intensity of a 0.6328 mu m He-Ne laser has been measured as a function e cavity Q. Significant deviations have been found from the predictions of the Lamb semi-classical theory, particularly near threshold. The results have been fully explained using the quantum theory of Scully and Lamb.
DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/2/1/014

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arXiv:quant-ph/0011003•Physical Review A•Nov 15, 2000•4 citations
A semiclassical, nonlinear theory of a single-mode laser is developed so that the transition around threshold can be studied. The field is expressed in the frequency domain which allows us to emphasize the role of the Fabry-P\'erot cavity. A generalized Airy function is obtained for the laser line shape: it contains the source line shape and the empty cavity line shape. It describes the laser both above and below threshold, including the transition region where there is an abrupt increase of intensity and decrease of the laser linewidth. The general arguments are illustrated by detailed numerical calculations for the 3.39-\ensuremath{\mu}m line of the He-Ne laser. The intensity of the spontaneous emission source which plays a central role is computed from first principles.
The form and the decay time of the intensity correlation function of the light from a single-mode He:Ne laser have been measured in the neighborhood of threshold. The experiments were performed at several predetermined values of the pump parametera, ranging froma = -1toa = 4. By combination of the experimental results with the theoretically predicted eigenvalues appearing in the expansion of the correlation function, it was possible also to determine the amplitudes of the first two terms in the expansion over the same range. The experimental results are found to be substantially in agreement with the nonlinear oscillator theory of the laser, without adjustment of any arbitrary scaling parameters.
The quantum-statistical properties of the optical field of a two-mode laser with two coupled transitions have been studied by means of a generalization of the Scully and Lamb theory. The photon number distribution and the mode intensity distribution are obtained in the steady state for a system of homogeneously broadened atoms in resonance with the laser field. It is shown that the mode-coupling constant $\ensuremath{\xi}$ is unity and that near threshold the results of earlier treatments are recovered. Furthermore, it is shown that certain limit measures for the relative intensity fluctuations predicted by the semiclassical Fokker-Planck treatments based on the third-order theory are valid even in the limit of arbitrarily high gain levels.
The problem of the quantum-limited or intrinsic linewidth of a good-cavity laser is revisited. Starting from the Scully-Lamb master equation, we present a fully analytical treatment to determine the correlation function and the spectrum of the cavity field at steady state. For this purpose, we develop an analytical approximation method that implicitly incorporates the microscopic fluctuations of both the phase and intensity of the field, and, in addition, takes full account of the saturation of the nonlinear gain. Our main result is a simple formula for the quantum-limited linewidth that is valid from near to far above threshold and also includes the presence of thermal photons. Close to the threshold, the linewidth is twice as large as predicted by the standard phase-diffusion treatment neglecting intensity fluctuations, and even 50% above threshold the increase is still considerable. In general, quantum fluctuations of the intensity are present and continue to influence the linewidth as long as the photon-number distribution is not strictly Poissonian. This inherent relationship is displayed by a formula relating the linewidth and the Mandel Q parameter. More than 100% above treshold the linewidth is found to be smaller than predicted by the standard treatment, since the simple phase-diffusion model increasingly overestimates the rate of phase fluctuations by neglecting gain saturation. In the limit of a very large mean photon number the expected perfectly coherent classical field is obtained.