Laser

LASER an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission, is popular in everyday life
and is now referred to as laser. Therefore, a laser is device that simulates atoms or molecules to
emit light of particular wavelengths and amplifies that light to produce a narrow beam of
radiation(Sadick and Cardona 2018). Light form lasers have distinctive features that separates it
from other sources, for example, laser light is purely monochromic compared to other light
sources like light bulbs or the sun.
To understand the wave length of a laser, we need to understand spontaneous and stimulated
emission. When an electron is in a high energy state, it must eventually decay to a lower energy
state giving off a photon of radiation. This is called spontaneous emission and the photon is
emitted in a random direction and a random phase. On the other hand, if an electron is in a higher
energy state, E2 and its decay path is to a lower energy state E 1 but before it can spontaneously
decay, a photon passes by whose energy is approximately E 2 – E1(energy difference between the
energy states) there is a probability that the photon will cause the electron to decay in such a way
that a photon is emitted at exactly the same wavelength, in exactly the same direction and with
exactly the same phase as the passing photon(Herd, Dover et al. 1997). Therefore, laser wave
length is the distance between two crests of an electromagnetic wave at which the laser is
produced. The wave length of the emitted laser beam ranges from far infrared to the UV
spectrum which is the range of 100 to 700 nm depending on the choice of the lasing
medium(Yang, An et al. 2019).
Laser Diode
These are semiconductor lasers and are also known as quantum wells. They are also the cheapest
and can be produced in mass and are easily scalable. These lasers, like LEDs are basically p-n
junctions which produce light of a certain wavelength when forward biased(Archer and Carniol
2019). Unlike LEDs which possess spontaneous emission, laser diodes emit radiation by
stimulated emission. Operation current should be higher than the threshold current in order to
achieve population inversion(Singh, Zeng et al. 2012). The active medium in a semiconductor
diode laser is in the form of junction region of 2 two-dimensional layers. No external mirror is
required for optical feedback in order to sustain laser oscillation. The reflectivity due to the
refractive index differences between two layers or total internal reflection to the active media is
sufficient for this purpose. The diodes end faces are cleaved, and parallelism of reflecting
surfaces is assured. Junctions which are made from one material are known as homojunction
while those that are made form more than one semiconductor material are heterojunction.
Semiconductors of p and n type with high carrier density are brought together or constructing p-n
junction with very thin depletion layer. Lasing occurs in the confined narrow region, and optical
feedback is done by reflections between cleaved end faces. When the operating current is small,
the population inversion built compensates losses in the system and no lasing action is done.
Increase of the current above a critical value named as threshold current commences lasing
action, and the intensity of laser radiation increases rapidly with further increase in the operating
current. Semiconductor lasers have large divergence compared to any other laser systems, which
is due to their small cross section of active region.
Gas Lasers
These lasers use a gas as the laser medium with the source of excitation being an electrical
discharge through the gas creating ions and electrons(Liu, He et al. 2019). Electrons in the
discharge tube are accelerated by the electric field between the electrodes. The accelerated
electrons collide with atoms, ions or molecules in the active media and induce transition to
higher energy levels to achieve population inversion and stimulated emission. Examples of gas
lasers include; helium-neon lasers, carbon dioxide lasers and excimer lasers.
The Helium Neon (He-Ne) laser uses lithium and neon as the lasing medium. The He-Ne laser
operates at a high voltage(kV) and low current discharge(mA) glow discharge. The most familiar
output wavelength is 633nm(red) but they are also able to output other wavelengths. Helium is
the major component of these lasers, at 85%, but neon is the actual lasing medium. The glow
discharge pumps the helium atoms to an excited state that closely matches the upper energy
levels of the neon atoms. This energy is then transferred to the neon atoms via collisions of the
second kind i.e. exciting the neon to a higher energy level as opposed to transferring the energy
as kinetic motion.
Carbon dioxide lasers use carbon dioxide as the lasing medium. Carbon dioxide is the most
efficient molecular gas laser material that exhibits for a high power and high efficiency gas laser
at infrared wavelength. It offers maximum industrial applications including cutting, drilling,
welding, and so on. It is widely used in the laser pyrolysis method of nanomaterials processing.
Unlike atomic lasers, CO2 lasers work with molecular transitions (vibrational and rotational
states) which lie at low enough energy levels that they can be populated thermally, and an
increase in the gas temperature, caused by the discharge, will cause a decrease in the inversion
level, reducing output power. To counter this effect, high-power cold work CO2 lasers use
flowing gas technology to remove hot gas from the discharge region and replace it with cooled
gas. With pulsed CO2 lasers that use transverse excitation, the problem is even more severe,
because, until the heated gas between the electrodes is cooled, a new discharge pulse cannot
form properly.
Excimer lasers, also known as noble gas ion lasers are gas lasers where the gain medium is a mix
of a noble gas, such as argon or krypton, and a reactive gas such as chlorine or fluorine. These
lasers are useful because they lase in the ultraviolet (~126 – 350nm) where there are few other
available laser sources. These lasers have important applications in photolithography and
medicine(Shimoda 2013).
Numerical Aperture and Acceptance angle in fibre optics
Acceptance angle
The angle of incidence of light on the core for which the angle of incidence on the core-cladding
interface equals the critical angle is known as Angle of Acceptance.
Derivation of Numerical aperture and acceptance angle
Consider the light ray propagated in an optical fiber. The incident ray AO enters into the core at
and angle θ0 the fibre axis. Let n1, n2 and no be the refractive indices of the core, cladding and the
surroundings.
Applying Snell’s law of refraction at the point O we have
n ₀ sinθ 0=n ₁ sin θ r
n₁
sinθ ₀= sinθr
n₀

n₁
sinθ ₀=
n₀
√ 1 cos2 θ−θr ………………….(1)

At the pint B on the interface of core and cladding

Applying Snell’s law of refraction at the point B we have

n1 sin ( 90 °−θr )=n2 sin 90 °

√
2
n₁ n₂
sinθ ₀= 1− 2
n₀ n₁

sinθ ₀=
n₀ √
n ₁ n₁ 2−n ₂2
n₁

sinθ ₀=
n₁
n₀n₁ 1 √
n ₁2−n ₂2
 sinθ ₀= √ n ₁2−n ₂2
n₀

The sinθ₀ is known as the Numerical Aperture; N . A= √ n₁2 −n ₂2

Therefore sinθ₀= √ n ₁2−n₁2

θ ₀=sin
−1
√n ₁2−n ₂2……………………..(3)

NA =sin θ₀ ……………………………(4)
Equation (4) is the final expression of the acceptance angle and the numerical aperture.
Light is propagated through the fibre when; sinθi < N.A (sinθ₀) or θi<θ₀

Acceptance Angle θ ₀=sin −1 √n ₁2−n ₂2

Numerical Aperture(NA) NA =sin θ₀

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Herd, R. M., et al. (1997). "Basic laser principles." Dermatologic clinics 15(3): 355-372.

Liu, X., et al. (2019). "Multi-task deep neural networks for natural language understanding."
arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.11504.
Sadick, N. S. and A. Cardona (2018). "Laser treatment for facial acne scars: a review." Journal of
Cosmetic and Laser Therapy 20(7-8): 424-435.

Shimoda, K. (2013). Introduction to laser physics, Springer.

Singh, S. C., et al. (2012). "Lasers: fundamentals, types, and operations." Nanomaterials:
Processing and Characterization With Lasers, First Edition, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.
KGaA.

Yang, J., et al. (2019). "Multi-wavelength laser treatments of spider nevi." Lasers in Medical
Science 34(4): 737-742.