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

Amplified spontaneous emission. II. The connection with laser theory

L. Allen, G I Peters

Published May 1, 1971• 37 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A simple relationship is derived between L c the critical length for amplified spontaneous emission, and L T , the threshold length of gas that must be excited for laser action to occur in a cavity of loss delta l . The relationship is experimentally verified and the semiclassical laser theory of Stenholm and Lamb is re-verified in a new way.

DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/4/3/015

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Quantum theory of amplified spontaneous emission: scaling properties

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We formulate a second-quantized theory of propagation in laser-active media and apply it to the description of amplified spontaneous emission for the case of homogeneously broadened three-level atoms in a rodlike geometry with arbitrary Fresnel number. The electromagnetic field is treated in paraxial approximation by an ad hoc quantization scheme, and spontaneous emission into off-axis modes is described by noise operator methods. We show by a scaling (dimensional) analysis how to derive the characteristic fields and lengths for superfluorescence and amplified spontaneous emission. The results show that dye media can be used as experimental analogs for x-ray lasers.

Journal of the Optical Society of America B•Jul 1, 1988•20 citations
A simple relationship is derived between L c the critical length for amplified spontaneous emission, and L T , the threshold length of gas that must be excited for laser action to occur in a cavity of loss delta l . The relationship is experimentally verified and the semiclassical laser theory of Stenholm and Lamb is re-verified in a new way.
Laser amplifiers when pumped to a significant degree of population inversion undergo decay via (1) natural spontaneous emission of radiation from individual excited atoms, and (2) a size-dependent decay due to self-amplification of the spontaneously emitted radiation which passes through a large fraction of the amplifier length before escaping. This latter effect has a definite size threshold near which the decay rate changes several orders of magnitude. The decay rate is roughly independent of size except near the threshold.
A theory is described which accounts for the dependence of the spectral distribution of amplified spontaneous emission on the length and inversion density of the active medium. For an inhomogeneously broadened line an unanticipated dip occurs in the plot of linewidth against length at lengths slightly greater than the critical length, but is explained by a simple physical analysis. Agreement occurs between the theory and that of Yariv and Leite (1963) in the regime over which their theory is expected to work. Observations by other workers on the spectral distribution of amplified spontaneous emission systems are discussed.
We formulate a second-quantized theory of propagation in laser-active media and apply it to the description of amplified spontaneous emission for the case of homogeneously broadened three-level atoms in a rodlike geometry with arbitrary Fresnel number. The electromagnetic field is treated in paraxial approximation by an ad hoc quantization scheme, and spontaneous emission into off-axis modes is described by noise operator methods. We show by a scaling (dimensional) analysis how to derive the characteristic fields and lengths for superfluorescence and amplified spontaneous emission. The results show that dye media can be used as experimental analogs for x-ray lasers.