A rate process theory of the spin-flip Raman laser

S.Y Yuen, Benjamin Lax, Peter A. Wolff

Allister McNeish, David Hardy Whiffen

James Floyd Scott

W. J. Firth

A theoretical expression is obtained for the time dependence of the Stokes power output of a pulsed Raman laser, the pump pulse duration being comparable to the relaxation time of the Raman excitation and the output saturation limited. A rate-equation approach is employed, and the pump beam is assumed to have a Gaussian intensity distribution. The theory is developed in terms of the practical example, stimulated spin-flip Raman scattering in InSb.

C. Kumar N. Patel

We report the first operation of a tunable cw spin-flip Raman laser at magnetic fields as low as 400 G. We also report the first observation of a tunable cw anti-Stokes spin-flip Raman (SFR) laser. These results should allow the SFR lasers to be operated with small electromagnets rather than the superconducting solenoids used heretofore.

C. Kumar N. Patel

We report direct measurements of the tunable spin-flip Raman (SFR) laser linewidth, obtained by heterodyning the SFR laser output with the output from a cw gas laser. The measured linewidth for the cw SFR laser operating near 5.3 \ensuremath{\mu}m is 1 kHz and is limited by the spectrum analyzer resolution. The measured linewidth of 1 kHz is the narrowest known for any tunable source of coherent radiation in the infrared.