LASER (Light Amplification by

Stimulated Emission of Radiation)

1
 INTRODUCTION
• Lasers have truly been the one of the greatest invention in 20th
century.
• They have found a variety of uses in electronics, computer
hardware, madicine, industry, military and experimental
science.
• In 1917, Albert Einstein first theorized about the process
which makes lasers possible called “stimulated emission”.
• The laser beam was invented by phycist Maiman in 1960.
• The laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated
Emission of radiation
 CONTD
• ….
The basic operating principles of the laser were put forth by
Charles Townes and Arthur Schalow from the Bell Telephone
Laboratories in 1958, and the first actual laser, based on a pink
ruby crystal, was demonstrated in 1960 by Theodor Maiman
at Hughes Research Laboratories.
• Laser is a device that emits light through a process of
optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of
electromagnetic radiation.
• A laser differ from other sources of light beacause it
emits light coherently
• In coherent beam of electromagnetic energy, all the waves
have the same frequency and phase.
PROPERTIES OF LASER
• Monochromatic:
It means that it consist of one color or wavelength.
• Divergence and directionality:
The beam is well collimated and travels long distance
with very little spread.
• Coherence:
All the individual waves of light are moving preciesly
together through time and space.
• Brightness:
The radiance of laser is an important factor. It is defined as the
power emitted per unit surface area per unit solid angle.
 CONSTRUCTION OF LASER
• A laser mainly requires three components for its operation: (a)
an active medium in the form of a laser rod, with energy
levels that can be selectively populated; (b) a pumping
process to produce population inversion between some of
these energy levels; and (c) a resonant cavity containing the
active medium which serves to store the emitted radiation and
provides feedback to maintain the coherence of the radiation.
Population Inversion
Metastable State
Cont..
 CONTD…
• . light may be provided by flash lamp or by another laser.
Pump
• The most common type of laser uses feedback from an optical
cavity which is designed to internally reflect IR or UV waves
so they reinforces each other.
• At each end of the cavity, there is a mirror. One mirror is
totally reflective and other mirror is partially reflective.
• Depending the design of the cavity the light coming out of the
laser may spread out or form a narrow beam.
PRINCIPLE OF LASERACTION
The principle of a laser is based on four separate
features:

• Absorption

• Spontanious emission

• Stimulated emission

• Population inversion
 Contd
…. :
Absorption

• In absorption an incoming photon excites the atomic system

from a lower energy state into higher energy state.
• It occurs when a photon strikes an atom with just exactly the
proper energy to induce an electronic transition between
two energy states.
 Contd
…. emission:
Spontanious
• It takes place when an electron in a higher energy level
drops down to a lower energy level and a photon is emitted
with an energy equal to the energy difference between the
two levels.
 Contd
…. emission:
Stimulated
• It takes place when a photon with an energy equal to the
energy difference between two levels interacts with the
electron in the higher energy level
 Population
•
inversion
Population inversion is when more atoms are in an excited
state than in their ground state.
• It is necessery condition to sustain a laser beam, so that there
are enough excited atoms, that can be stimulated to emit more
photons.
• To achieve non-equilibrium conditions, an indirect method of
populating the excited state must be used which is done using
a three level laser and a four level laser.
 Three level &four level
laser
• Three level laser:
 CONTD…
• . level laser:
Four
TYPES OF LASER
The most important and known types of laser are classified as:

• Solid state laser

• Gas laser

• Semiconductor laser

• Dye laser
 SOLID STATE LASER
• Ruby laser

• Nd – YAG laser

• Nd – Glass laser
Ruby laser:
The important type of solid state laser is the ruby laser.
• Ruby laser is historically the first one to be discovered.
• It consist of a ruby rod , xenon flash tube, a suitable cavity to
reflect the light from flash tube to the ruby rod, and high
voltage power apply to give electrical energy to the flash tube.
 Contd
•
… .
The laser is a three level system only three energy levels are
involved in the process of stimulated emission.
• The population inversion is achieved by exciting the atoms
with intense light from a xenon flash lamp.
• Thus the atoms are excited from ground state to the upper
state
by means of absorption.
Nd – YAG laser:
 CONTD
• ….is formed from a mixed oxide system having a
YAG
composition of Y3Al5OI2.
• The crystal is grown in a specially designed furnace by
dipping a rotating seed into a crucible of molten material
and withdrawing it at a constant speed.
• Iridium crucible is used because of high melting point of YAG
(1910-1970°C).
• the YAG host has the advantage of having a relatively high
thermal conductivity to dissipate the heat generated, thus
allowing these crystals to be operated at high repetition
rates of the order of many pulses per second. With a
continuous source of excitation like tungsten lamp or
krypton arc lamp, continuous laser output of about 1 kW
power could be obtained.
• Due to these excellent properties, Nd: YAG laser is
extensively used in many industrial applications like drilling
of holes in solid objects, welding of metals and alloys, etc,
and also in medical applications like eye surgery, treatment of
cancer, etc.
Nd – Glass laser:
• Nd: glass is an important laser material for high energy
applications.
• It affords considerable flexibility in size and shape and can be
obtained in large homogeneous spices. Glass is a compound of
oxides; the non-metal oxides, such silicon dioxide,
phosphorus pent oxide and boron oxides are its main
constituents.
• The major disadvantage of glass is that it produces in
homogeneously broadened lines which are wider than those
found in crystals . This raises the threshold, as a larger
Inversion is required for the same gain.
• Another disadvantage of glass is its low thermal
conductivity.
 GAS LASERS
• It has gas or a mixture of gasese as their light amplifying
substance.
• It is much cheaper than solid state lasers and yields highly
coherent radiation required for many applications.
• The gas lasers are of continuous type and normally have
high
coherence.
• He – Ne and carbon dioxide lasers are most widely used gas
lasers.
He – Ne laser:
• The helium-neon laser is the most widely used of all lasers
mainly because it is much cheaper than the solid-state
lasers and yields highly coherent radiation required for
many applications.
 CONTD
• ….system, an electrical discharge is given in helium
In this
contained in a discharge tube at a pressure of about 1 torr
with an admixure of neon at about 0.1torr.
• The discharge excites the He atoms to their first excited level
above their ground state.
• Then the excited energy of the helium atom is transferred to
the Ne atoms by resonance transfer due to collision
between them.
• These excited states radiatively to lower energy neon state
giving rise to continuous laser beam
Carbon dioxide laser:
• It is a very important laser because of its high efficiency and
high power capacity.
• It is a molecular gas discharge with the laser action taking
place between two vibrational level of carbon dioxide
gas.
• A suitable mixture of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and helium
gases is taken in a gas discharge tube and excited electrically
with the help of a power supply.
• The nitrogen molecules are excited to their first excited the
Lower vibrational levels giving rise to laser radiation.
• The helium gas helps to populate the upper state but also
assists to empty the lower state of carbon dioxide, thus
increasing the efficiency of carbon dioxide laser.
 CONTD…
.

• The carbon dioxide laser is used for a wide variety of

applications, including eye and tissue surgery, welding, cutting
and heat treatment of materials, laser fusion, and beam
weapons. Rock sand granites crumble into pieces with a 1.2
kW carbon dioxide laser. One day, such a laser may be used to
drill underground tunnels.
Dye laser:

• Liquid lasers are similar to the solid-state lasers.

• Dyes exhibit a very high degree of fluorescence.
• Different dyes have different emission spectra or colors.
• Dye lasers cover a broad wavelength range from the ultraviolet
at 320 nm to the infrared at about 1500 nm.
• The dye laser output can be a very narrow frequency beam.
 CONTD
• …. application of dye lasers is for producing ultra
Important
short optical pulses.
• The dye lasers are less expensive than the solid-state lasers
and are relatively easy to maintain for regular operation.
 Semiconductor laser:

• It is based on the principle of electron hole recombination in

a direct band gap semiconductor which results in emission of
photons.
• It consists of a p-n junction in which p and n regions are
heavily doped. Each side of the laser is the order of 1 mm.
the width of p-n junction layer is 1 micrometer.
CONTD…
.
 APPLICATION OF LASERS
• Biomedical applications

• Industrial applications

• Other applications
 Industrial Applications:
• Laser Cutting

• Laser Drilling

• Laser Welding

• Laser glass decoration

• Laser marking
 Other applications:
• Laser radar in ecology :

Ground laser radars are used in ecology to measure air

pollution.
• Laser Range Finder:
These laser rangefinders are light weight and have higher
reliability and superior range accuracy as compared to the
conventional range finders. The laser range finder works on
the principle of radar.
 CONCLUSION
• A laser is a device that emits electromagnetic radiation
through a process of amplification based on the stimulated
emission of photons.
• The wavelength of laser light is extremely pure when
compared to other light sources and all of the photons that
make up the laser beam have a fixed phase relationship with
respect to one another.
• Laser is a powerful source of light having extraordinary
properties which are not found in the normal light sources like
tungsten lamps, mercury lamps etc.
• The unique property of laser is that its light waves travel very
long distances with very little divergence.