Multimode lasers

The Goeppert-Mayer two- (or multi-) photon absorption, mechanism (ii), may look similar, but it involves intennediate levels far from resonance with one-photon absorption. A third, quasi-resonant stepwise mechanism (iii), proceeds via smgle- photon excitation steps involvmg near-resonant intennediate levels. Finally, in mechanism (iv), there is the stepwise multiphoton absorption of incoherent radiation from themial light sources or broad-band statistical multimode lasers. In principle, all of these processes and their combinations play a role in the multiphoton excitation of atoms and molecules, but one can broadly... 

Although 0-switching produces shortened pulses, typically 10-200 ns long, if we require pulses in the picosecond (10 s) or femtosecond (10 s) range the technique of mode locking may be used. This technique is applicable only to multimode operation of a laser and involves exciting many axial cavity modes but with the correct amplitude and phase relationship. The amplitudes and phases of the various modes are normally quite random. 

Farrow R. L., Rahn L. A. Interpreting coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectra measured with multimode Nd YAG pump lasers, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B2, 903-7 (1985). 

The 6 Nd YAG lasers pump the DM0, preamplifier and power amplifier (Fig. 19, Friedman et al., 1998). The YAG lasers are built from commercially available flashlamp/laser rod assemblies, acousto-optic Q-switches and frequency doubling crystals (LBO and KTP). Most of the mirror mounts and crystal holders are commercial. Nd YAGs are frequency doubled to 532 nm using a nonlinear crystal. The Nd YAG rod and nonlinear crystal are both in the pump laser cavity to provide efficient frequency conversion. The 532 nm light is coupled out through a dichroic and fed to multimode fibers which transport the light to the DM0 and amplifier dye cells. 

The levitated laser dye droplet was optically pumped by a pulsed (pulse length 5 ns, repetition rate 10 Hz), frequency-doubled Nd YAG laser (2 = 532 nm) in free-space optical setup. Droplet light emission was collected by a multimode optical fiber placed at an angle of approximately 50° relative to pump laser beam. Collected light was analyzed in a fixed-grating spectrometer with a resolution of FWHM 0.15 nm. 

Figure 2.8 A schematic diagram of the gain spectral profile, G(v), of a laser transition (solid line), together with the axial resonator modes (dotted line) of a cavity in which the frequency separation between adjacent modes is A v. (a) Multimode and (b) single-mode operation. The frequencies of those modes for which the gain exceeds the losses have been marked.

The wavelength of a laser line, however, is determined by two factors the fluorescence profile of the corresponding transition in the laser medium and the eigenfrequencies of the laser resonator modes. At normal multimode operation of a laser, where many axial and transverse modes participate in laser oscillation, these eigenfrequencies cover the whole spontaneous line profile nearly uniformly. 

In solid state lasers the fluorescence lines are broadened 26) by statistical Stark fields of the thermal vibrating crystal lattice and furthermore by optical inhomogenities of the crystal. The corresponding laser lines are accordinglyjlarge at multimode operation 22)... 

The single-mode laser naturally gives less output power than a multimode laser with the same active volume since its induced emission is concentrated into a smaller frequency range. This loss in intensity, however, is much less than one would expect from the ratio of linewidths or from the reduction in oscillating mode number 3i. 32,41) jbis is due to the fact, that not only atoms with the exact transition frequency can contribute to the induced emission, but also those inside the homogeneous linewidth which is determined by collision processes in the case of gas lasers or by crystal line broadening in solid lasers... 

Written by an international panel of experts, this volume begins with a comparison of nonlinear optical spectroscopy and x-ray crystallography. The text examines the use of multiphoton fluorescence to study chemical phenomena in the skin, the use of nonlinear optics to enhance traditional optical spectroscopy, and the multimodal approach, which incorporates several spectroscopic techniques in one instrument. Later chapters explore Raman microscopy, third-harmonic generation microscopy, and nonlinear Raman microspectroscopy. The text explores the promise of beam shaping and the use of a broadband laser pulse generated through continuum generation and an optical pulse shaper. 

The chemical specificity of CARS microscopy is readily combined with other nonlinear optical image contrast mechanisms, such as two-photon fluorescence (TPF), SHG, and THG, resulting in a multimodal CARS microscopy [88, 118, 117, 43]. In multimodal nonlinear optical imaging, TPF, SHG, and THG signals all benefit from the use of femtosecond laser pulses of high peak intensities, whereas the contrast and chemical selectivity of CARS benefits from the use of picosecond (narrow-bandwidth) pulses (see discussion in Sect. 6.2.3). As demonstrated by Pegoraro et al. [43], this apparent... 

Unfortunately, this is not an atypical situation. APIs frequently exhibit rod- or needle-like morphology. Using laser diffraction instruments, particle size distributions of these materials appear as multimodal, making it difficult to assert that... 

The instrument design is less complicated as compared with laser diffraction. A stable suspension of particles is placed in a transparent cell, where a laser beam impinges on the particles. As the light is scattered from the randomly moving particles, interference patterns are created. Using suitable mathematical algorithms, these patterns are converted into particle size distributions. This technique is not well suited for material that exhibits a multimodal particle size distribution. One should not use this technique to obtain particle size distributions because of the assumptions that are needed to convert the interference patterns into usable information. The technique should be used to assess average particle size only. Additional information on this technique can be found in the literature.2,6,13... 

In practice this condition may be fulfilled not only in excitation, e.g. by means of a pulsed laser or a continuous dye laser with insufficient frequency selectivity, but also by means of fines from a continuous gas laser working in simultaneous axial mode u>i (multimode) generation regime see Fig. 3.10(a). Let Au>i = u>i+1 — uii = itc/L denote the mode separation in a laser, L being the resonator length. Then, as pointed out in [110, 127, 231], broad line approximation works if Awj is smaller than the width of the Bennet holes r en [268, 320] in the absorption contour see Fig. 3.10(6). The positions of the Bennet holes are determined by the condition ujq — w/ + kv = 0, where luq is the central transition frequency, k is the wave vector and v is the velocity of the absorbing particle. The broad fine approximation is valid if the following conditions are fulfilled (see Fig. 3.10) ... 

Duclqy, M. (1973). Nonlinear effects in optical pumping of atoms by a high intensity multimode gas laser. General theory, Phys. Rev. A, 8, 1844-1859. 

Moving from the single mode DFB lasers to a multimode, continuous-wave high-power pump diode as for example used to pump the EDFAs, the necessary nonlinearity drops clearly but whether the material will sustain the power of two Watts on the dimensions of micrometers is questionable. 

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