(Q.

1)Discuss (Absorption ,Spontaneous EMISSION ,

Stimulated Emission and pumping )?

Absorption:
-The atom in ground state absorbs energy from the photon
and goes to excited state
-The lifetime of atom in excited state is very small ; of the
order of 10-8 Sec.
-Atom in ground state + photon= atom in excited state.

Spontaneous EMISSION
-Atom in excited state returns back to ground state after
expiring of lifetime
-The excess energy appears as a photon
-The process is spontaneous and we don’t have any control on
the generation or the direction of the photon
- Excited atom Atom in ground state + photon

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 Stimulated Emission:
-When a photon of appropriate energy is incident on an matter,
atoms in excited state makes a transition from excited state
to ground state.
-Two photon are generated having same phase, energy and
direction.
-Atom in excited state + Photon Atom in ground state + 2
Photons.
pumping:
-Pumping is the process of supplying energy to the laser
medium with a view of transforming it into the state of
population inversion.
-METHODS OF PUMPING:
1-Optical pumping. 2-Electrical discharge.
3-Inelastic collisions. 4-Chemical reactions.
5-Direct conversion of electrical energy.

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(Q.2)How laser is formed ?

-A laser is any of a class of devices that produces an intense

beam of light of a very pure single color. This light beam may
be intense enough to vaporize the hardest and most heat-
resistant materials. The word laser is an acronym derived from
"light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation."

-Atoms and molecules exist at low and high energy levels.

Those at low levels can be excited to higher levels, usually by
heat, and after reaching the higher levels they give off light
when they return to a lower level. In ordinary light sources the
many excited atoms or molecules emit light independently and
in many different colors. If, however, during the brief instant
that an atom is excited, light of a certain wavelength impinges
on it, the atom can be stimulated to emit radiation that is in
phase with the wave that stimulated it. The new emission thus
augments or amplifies the passing wave; if the phenomenon can
be multiplied sufficiently, the resulting beam, made up of
wholly coherent light , will be tremendously powerful.

-Albert Einstein recognized the existence of stimulated

emission in 1917, but not until the 1950s were ways found to
use it in devices. The American physicists Charles H. Townes
and A.L. Schawlow showed that it was possible to construct
such a device using optical light. Two Soviet physicists
proposed related ideas independently. The first laser,
constructed in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman of the United
States, used a rod of ruby. Since then many types of lasers
have been built
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-The light produced by lasers is in general far more
monochromatic, directional,powerful, and coherent than that
from any other light sources. Nevertheless, the individual
kinds of lasers differ greatly in these properties as well as in
wavelength, size, and efficiency. There is no single laser
suitable for all purposes, but some of the combinations of
properties can do things that were difficult or impossible
before lasers were developed.

- A continuous visible beam from a laser using a gas, such as

the helium-neon combination, provides a nearly ideal straight
line for all kinds of alignment applications. The beam from
such a laser typically diverges by less than one part in a
thousand, approaching the theoretical limit. The beam's
divergence can be reduced by passing it backward through a
telescope, although fluctuations in the atmosphere then limit
the sharpness of a beam over a long path. Lasers have come to
be widely used for alignment in large construction.

-A pulsed laser can be used in a light radar, sometimes called

LIDAR, and the narrowness of its beam permits sharp
definition of targets. As with radar, the distance to an object
is measured by the time taken for the light to reach and
return from it, since the speed of light is known. LIDAR
echoes have been returned from the Moon, facilitated by a
multiprism reflector that was placed there by the first
astronauts to land there. Distances can be measured from an
observatory on Earth to the lunar mirror with an accuracy of
several centimetres.

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Simultaneous measurements of the mirror's distance and
direction from two observatories on different parts of the
Earth could give an accurate value for the distance between
the two observatories. A series of such measurements can tell
the rate at which continents are drifting relative to each
other.

-A vertically directed laser radar in an airplane can serve as a

fast, high-resolution device for mapping fine details, such as
the contours of steps in a stadium or the shape of the roof of
a house. With a pulsed laser radar, returns can be obtained
from dust particles and even from air molecules at higher
altitudes. Thus air densities can be measured and air currents
can sometimes be traced.

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 RUBY LASER

CARBON-DI-OXIDE LASER