296

Lasers
Discharge power supply
A

Glass gas envelope

V )t
External

Enpu.,r

Output beam

Fig.12.6
Schematic representation
laser.

Breu,ster u,indows

ofa

gas

t)

nrinors

mirrors is that their adjustment is not critical, and their also improve efficiency. Dielectric mirrors are also used. not only because they give befter reflections than metal mirrors but bccausc thev can also select the required wavelength from the trvo possible transitions shorvn in Fig. 12.5. A close, though more pou'erful. re lative of the He-Ne laser is the argon ion laser, operating in a pure Ar discl.rarge. The pumping into the upper level is achieved by multiple collisions between electrons and argon ions. It can deiiver CW por.ver up to about -10 W at 488 and 5 1.1 nm r','avelengths. It is in the company of the He Ne laser. the one most otien seen on laboratory benches. The COl laser is capable of delivering even higher pou,er (tens of kW) at the wavelength ol 10.6;rm. It is still a discharge laser. but the energy levels of interest are diflerent fiom those discussed up to now. They are due to the intemal vibrations of the CO. molecule. All such molecular lasers oscillate in the infrared. some of thern (e.g. the HCN laser n'orking at 537 pm) approach
the micro*ave range.

12.6.3

Dye lasers

This is an interesting class of lasers. employing fluorescent organic dyes as the active material. Their distinguishing feature is the broad emission spectrum. which permits the tuning of the laser oscillations. The energy levels of interest are shown in Fig. 12.7(a). The heav_v lines represent vibrational states, and the lighter lines represent the rotational fine strucfure, which provides a near continuum of states. The pump (flashlamp or rvili another laser) will excite states in the S1 band (A - b transition) rvhich --+ (B to .B and rvill then a transition decay non-radiatively make radiative u'ide to an energy level in the S0 band. Depending the a. a a) on endpoint, range of frequencies may be emitted. Finally, the cycle is closed by the nonradiative a --+ A transition. Unfortunately, at any given fiequency of operatron, there are some other competing non-radiative processes indicated by the dotted lines. A photon may be absorbed by exciting some state in the higher S1 band. or there might be a non-radiative decay to the ground state via some other energy levels. There is net gain (meaning the gain of the wave during a single transit befween the reflectors) if the absorptive processes are weaker than the fluorescent processes.