He-Ne LASER

Sabyasachi Barik
Roll No-Y0911043,School of physical science,NISER
March 10, 2013

Objectives
Alignment of the green tracking laser.
Alignment of the He-Ne laser tube using the green tracking laser.
Choice of suitable mirrors for forming the resonator and alignment of the resonator using the green-tracking
laser.
Realization of the lazing action and emission of red coherent light
Measurement of the He-Ne laser wavelength using grating technique.
Measurement of the output beam diameter using the knife edge technique.
Measurement of state of polarization of the laser beam.

Equipments
Helium-Neon Laser, experimental setup

Grating element; 600 lines/mm

Vernier caliper

Knife edge

Photo-detector
HR at/at, HR at/1400 mm mirrors

Analyzer

Theory
Principle of He-Ne Laser
Laser is an acronym for Light Amplication by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The main components of a
laser are active medium, pump and an optical resonator. Under normal conditions the number of atoms in the
lower energy state is always larger than the number in the excited state. To get emission lines we have to excite
the atoms to higher energy levels. This is known as population inversion. To achieve population inversion in
equilibrium we require a continuous source of energy. This task is done by the pump. Finally the amplication
of emission lines is done through optical resonators. In this experiment we are using He-Ne gas as the active
medium. A thin tube is lled with helium at a pressure of a few Torr with 10% neon. An electric discharge
is established in the gases by the application of few kilovolts across the length of the tube. Electrons in the
discharge excite the helium atoms to the 2S levels(singlet and triplet states). These are meta stable states
located 20 eV above the helium ground level. Accidentally the energy of these levels coincide with the 4S and
5S levels of neon atom. Through exchange the neon atoms are excited to these levels resulting in population
inversion. Lasing might take place at the following wavelength that correspond to dierent atomic transitions.
3S2 2P4 with = 632.8nmand543nm 2S2 2P4 with = 1152nm 3S 3P with = 3390nm In
principle we should be able to lase most of the wavelengths above. However it is the 632.8 nm line that gets
lased most easily.
1

Alignment of the green tracking laser

For this part we are provided with two diaphragm plates aligned on the optical bench with the Green laser.
A perfect alignment is obtained when one obtains a nearly circular diraction pattern (arising from the rst
diaphragm) on the diaphragm placed at the far end. This aligns the green tracking laser parallel to the optical
bench.

Alignment of the He-Ne laser tube using the green tracking laser
In this part we have to align the He-Ne laser tube with the green laser. Green light is allowed to enter into the
He-Ne laser tube. The alignment screws of the tube are adjusted in a manner that allows clear passage of the
green laser. The alignment is ensured if one observes a clear green spot without any distortions at both the
diaphragms. Distortions in the green spot on the diaphragm implies that the green laser is hitting the inner
wall of the tube somewhere. Care should be taken to avoid this every time while aligning.

Choice of suitable mirrors for forming the resonator and alignment of the resonator
using the green-tracking laser
An optical resonator is combination of two high quality mirrors facing exactly each other. Under this situation
if we place a light source inside the resonator it builds up and is therefore an ideal setup for realizing the
lasing action of a laser. For this experiment we choose these two mirrors to be concave. A concave-concave
combination is most stable as compared to at-at combination. To align the resonator with the already aligned
He-Ne laser tube we rst carefully remove the tube from the optical bench. The alignment of resonator is done
through the green tracking laser. A perfect alignment occurs when the incident green laser beam coincides with
the reected beams coming from both the mirrors.

Realization of the lazing action and emission of red coherent light

If all the aforementioned alignments are perfect then lasing should start as soon as we put the He-Ne tube
back on the optical bench. If lasing does not starts we again use the green tracking laser and ne tune all the
alignment screws. After a few trials lasing should start. As we already know that the dominant line emitted in
the He-Ne laser corresponds to 5S2 3P4 transition which further corresponds to = 632.8nm therefore we
purposely select mirrors whose coating is done for this particular wavelength.

Measurement of the He-Ne laser wave-length

Once the red laser is obtained we can measure its wavelength by standard diraction techniques. For this
purpose we use a grating element that has D1 = 600lines/mm. We use the standard formula
Dsin() = n

(1)

n being the order of the maxima and is the angle that central maxima and nth order maxima subtends at
the grating element.

Measurement of the output beam diameter using the knife edge technique
A way of measuring the output beam diameter is to record the intensity received at the photo diode as a knife
edge is moved transversely through the beam. The knife edge is mounted on a translation stage that can be
positioned with a resolution of a few micrometers. The recorded intensity as a function of the position of the
knife edge gives the integral of the beam prole. This data can most generally be tted with a sigmoidal curve.
Using standard convention we dene the beam diameter as the range marked by 90% and the 10% of the maxima
of the sigmoidal w.r.t its minima.Let the intensity corresponding to that two pionts be I90 and I10 . Then the
beam diameter is given by

(2)
d = 2 2 0.552(I90 I10 )

Measurement of State of Polarization

The polarizer was mounted with zero perpendicular to the laser beam and horizontal. The intensity was plotted
against rotation of the polarizer.From the plot the information about the state of polarization can be found out.

Results and Discussions

Beam diameter

Figure 1: Measurement of beam diameter

The screw wedge can be rotated to advance the knife edge. One rotation corresponds to a distance of
0.5mm. Measurements were done in rotations with two signicant digits.
From the plot it is evident that this is curve does not correspond to the smooth Gaussian or Lorentz
intensity proles. Had it been so, it would have been close to the shown Boltzman t.
However, assuming that the intensity prole is Gaussian, if we measure the beam width (by 1/10 rise or fall

method), we get a result of 3.22 rotations=1.6 0.05 mm. Beamdiameter = d = 2 2 0.552 1.6 =
2.49 0.7mm
To get a perfect picture we take a dierential plot which gives us the beam prole which looks like the
following.

Figure 2: Measurement of beam diameter from beam prole

From the dierential plot, it is clear that the unexpected cumulative power curve was because of two
beams resulting from imperfect alignment.
This shows that the alignment was unstable and the two beams overlapped within the lasing region but
as the beam prole was taken about a meter away from the lasing region the two beams were separated.
The width of the two beams was calculated from the plot as

1.05rotations = 0.52 0.05mm

and
1.53rotations = 0.76 0.05mm
..But it has to be kept in mind that these are the beam widths of the individual two beams(which were
dicult to distinguish in our experiment).
The (1/e th) width (from the highest peak) was 1.760.05 mm. However, this is meaningless as the beam
prole is not a Gaussian. However this gives an idea of area of total irradiation.

Measurement of He-Ne laser wavelength by grating

order 1
order 2

distance of screen cm
29.5
29.5

distance on screen cm
12.1
34.4

Angle (deg)
22.301
49.384

in nm
632.479
632.584
Avg = 632.531

Measurement of State of Polarization

From the graph it is evident that, the plot does not follow the exact cosine square curve, the dotted line
(after rescaled to intensity parameters).This happened due to the presence of two beams.

 Again the solid line is the curve whose phase is adjusted to match the minima of the curve. The maxima
was a bit atted out and so was a poor resource. This line diers from the cosine square curve with just
pure angle arguments by a phase angle of 100 .
With y axis perpendicular up to the rail, we hence have the polarization axis as cos(100 ) sin(100 )
x
y
where zaxis is the propagation direction of the beam.

Conclusions
Laser alignment was done and lasing action was achieved .
Stability of laser beam was achieved for dierent values of mirror spacing
Wavelength of laser was obtained which was found out to be 632.53 nm where as the literature value is
632.8 nm.
Beam diameter of the Laser was calculated and also the state of polarization was calculated.

Precautions
Follow all laser safety protocols.
Before aligning optical instruments care should be taken to ensure that all optical surfaces are clean
enough.

Sources of errors
If the mirrors are loose, they will cause a disturbance in the alignment and hence create errors in measurements. Hence loose mirrors are one source of error.

 While measuring the beam diameter inside cavity by vernier calipers lot of error arises .
The other sources of error are while measuring the wavelength which is a least count error and while
measuring the beam spot diameter where precaution and extra light sources can create errors.