Emission, Absorption, Photons, and Lasers

Michael P. Keating

Constantine Mavroyannis

We have considered the induced processes that occur in a driven two-level atom, where a laser photon is absorbed and emitted by the ground and by the excited states of the atom, respectively. In the low-intensity limit of the laser field, the induced spectra arising when a laser photon is absorbed by the ground state of the atom consist of two peaks describing induced-absorption and stimulated-emission processes, respectively, where the former prevails over the latter. Asymmetry of the spectral lines occurs at off-resonance and its extent depends on the detuning of the laser field. The physical, process where a laser photon is emitted by the excited state is the reverse of that arising from the absorption of a laser photon by the ground state of the atom. The former differs from the latter in that the emission of a laser photon by the excited state occurs in the low-frequency regime and that the stimulated-emission process prevails over that of the induced absorption. In this case, amplification of ultrashort pulses is likely to occur without the need of population inversion between the optical transitions. The computed spectra are graphically presented and discussed.

Wenjing Cheng, Shian Zhang, Tianqing Jia +2 more

The enhancement and tunable color emissions from codoped lanthanide ions of Er3+/Tm3+/Yb3+ have been studied extensively in recent decades. In this paper, we present a new scheme for quantum coherent control of two-photon absorption (TPA) and color emission in codoped lanthanide ions of Er3+/Tm3+/Yb3+ by properly phase shaping two infrared ultrashort laser beams at central frequencies of 10 650 cm−1 and 7650 cm−1, respectively. Compared with the results irradiated by transform-limited pulses, the TPA probabilities of the blue, green and red emissions are independently controlled in the ranges 0–13.3, 0–14.5 and 0–1.0, respectively. The effects of the energy states of lanthanide ions and the laser spectral bandwidths on the coherent features are also discussed. The TPA probabilities for the blue and green emissions increase with the laser spectral bandwidths and decrease with the energy bandwidths of the final level states. As the intermediate energy level shifts in the range 10 100–10 500 cm−1, the TPA probabilities for the blue and green emissions change in the ranges 7–15 and 8–17, respectively.

Wolfgang Demtröder

Constantine Mavroyannis

Studies the competition between absorption and stimulated emission induced by two laser fields at low intensities interacting on a two-photon resonance with a three-level atom. The induced spectrum into the ground state consists of a peak whose height and asymmetry depend strongly on the detuning. The spectra arising from the emission of a laser photon by the excited state consists of two peaks describing stimulated emission and induced absorption, respectively, where the former dominates the latter for small values of the Rabi frequencies but for higher ones, they cancel each other out.