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A ruby laser head. The photo on the left shows the head unassembled, revealing the pumping cavity, the rod and the flashlamps. The photo on the right shows the head assembled. Laser pumping is the act of energy transfer from an external source into the gain medium of a laser. The energy is absorbed in the medium, producing excited states in
A solar-pumped laser (or solar-powered laser) is a laser that shares the same optical properties as conventional lasers such as emitting a beam consisting of coherent electromagnetic radiation which can reach high power, but which uses solar radiation for pumping the lasing medium. This type of laser is unique from other types in that it does ...
Optical pumping is a process in which light is used to raise (or "pump") electrons from a lower energy level in an atom or molecule to a higher one. It is commonly used in laser construction to pump the active laser medium so as to achieve population inversion. The technique was developed by the 1966 Nobel Prize winner Alfred Kastler in the ...
The active laser medium (also called a gain medium or lasing medium) is the source of optical gain within a laser. The gain results from the stimulated emission of photons through electronic or molecular transitions to a lower energy state from a higher energy state previously populated by a pump source. Examples of active laser media include:
Energy Transfer Upconversion or ETU is a physical principle (most commonly encountered in solid-state laser physics) that involves the excitation of a laser-active ion to a level above that which would be achieved by simple absorption of a pump photon, the required additional energy being transferred from another laser-active ion undergoing nonradiative deexcitation.
The wavelength of laser diodes is tuned by means of temperature to produce an optimal compromise between the absorption coefficient in the crystal and energy efficiency (lowest possible pump photon energy). As waste energy is limited by the thermal lens this means higher power densities compared to high-intensity discharge lamps.
Examples of pump sources include electrical discharges, flashlamps, arc lamps, light from another laser, chemical reactions and even explosive devices. The type of pump source used principally depends on the gain medium , and this also determines how the energy is transmitted to the medium.
Fig.1. An optically pumped disk laser (active mirror). A disk laser or active mirror (Fig.1) is a type of diode pumped solid-state laser characterized by a heat sink and laser output that are realized on opposite sides of a thin layer of active gain medium. [1] Despite their name, disk lasers do not have to be circular; other shapes have also ...