LASER BEAM CHARACTERISTICS Monochromaticity Directionality Coherence Brightness

I SpontLaser Emission

Emission

Monochromaticity
This property is due to the following two factors. First, only an EM wave of 0 = ( E2 E1 ) / h frequency can be amplified . has a certain range which is called linewidth, this linewidth is decided by homogeneous broadening factors and inhomogeneous broadening factors, the result linewidth is very small compared with normal lights. Second, the laser cavity forms a resonant system, oscillation can occur only at the resonance frequencies of this cavity. This leads to the further narrowing of the laser linewidth, the narrowing can be as large as 10 orders of magnitude! So laser light is usually very pure in wavelength, we say it has the property of monochromaticity.
0

Coherence
For any EM wave, there are two kinds of coherence, namely spatial and temporal coherence. Lets consider two points that, at time t=0, lie on the same wave front of some given EM wave, the phase difference of EM wave at the two points at time t=0 is 0. If for any time t>0 the phase difference of EM wave at the two points remains 0, we say the EM wave has perfect coherence between the two points. If this is true for any two points of the wave front, we say the wave has perfect spatial coherence. In practical the spatial coherence occurs only in a limited area, we say it is partial spatial coherence. Now consider a fixed point on the EM wave front.

Laser radiation is composed of waves at the same

wavelength, which start at the same time and keep their relative phase as they advance.

E = Ai cos(i t + i )

If at any time the phase difference between time t and time t+dt remains the same, where "dt" is the time delay period, we say that the EM wave has temporal coherence over a time dt. If dt can be any value, we say the EM wave has perfect temporal coherence. If this happens only in a range 0<dt<t0, we say it has partial temporal coherence, with a coherence time equal to t0. We emphasize here that spatial and temporal coherence are independent. A partial temporal coherent wave can be perfect spatial coherent. Laser light is highly coherent, and this property has been widely used in measurement, holography, etc.

Spatial coherence: considering two points P1and P2 that, at time t = 0, lie on the same wave front of some given em wave and let E1(t) and E2(t) be the corresponding electric fields at these two points. By definition the difference between phases of the two fields at time t= 0 is zero. If this difference remains zero at any time t > 0, we say that there is a perfect coherence between the two points. If such coherence occurs for any two points of the em wave front, we then say that the wave has perfect spatial coherence. In practice, for any point P1, point P2 must lie within some finite area around P1 to have a good phase correlation. In this case we say that the wave has partial spatial coherence, and, for any point P, we can introduce a suitably defined coherence area SC(P).

Temporal coherence: Considering the electric field of the em wave, at a given point P, at times t and t + . If, for a given time delay , the phase difference between the two field remains the same for any time t, we say that there is a temporal coherence over a time . If this occurs for any value of , the em wave is said to have perfect temporal coherence. If this occurs for a time delay such that 0 < < 0, the wave is said to have partial temporal coherence, with a coherence time equal to 0.

Temporal Coherence is related to monochromaticity. Spatial Coherence is related to directionality and uniphase wavefronts.

Directionality Even for the case of perfect spatial coherence, a beam of finite aperture has unavoidable divergence due to diffraction. This can be understood with the help from diffraction theory, for an arbitrary amplitude distribution, we can have
d = D
d
laser

where and D are the wavelength and the diameter of the beam, respectively. The factor is a numerical coefficient of the order of unity whose value depends on the shape of the amplitude distribution and how both the divergence and the beam diameter are defined.

For the partial spatial coherence, its divergence is greater than the minimum value set by diffraction. Indeed, for any point P' of the wave front, the Huygens argument in Fig. 1.6 can be applied only for points lying within the coherence area Sc around point P'. The coherence area thus acts as a limiting aperture for the coherent superposition of elementary wavelets. Thus, the beam divergence can now be written as:

( Sc )1/ 2

Divergence: Gas lasers-0.001rad solid-state lasers-0.01rad

Brightness
The brightness of a light source is defined as the power emitted per unit surface area per unit solid angle. A laser beam of power P, with a circular beam cross section of diameter D and a divergence angle and the result emission solid angle is 2, the brightness is given by:

The maximum brightness for a beam of power P is

2 B= P
2

In case of limited diffraction

CW and pulsed operation The laser can be continuously pumped and hence the output power is continuous It can be operated in pulsed mode using Q-switching and mode locking techniques

Short Pulse Duration Utilizing Q-switch and mode-lock technologies, one can obtain from ps to fs laser pulses. Generally, the laser pulse duration ~ 1 p 0 where 0 is the laser linewidth. For gas lasers, it is about or less than 1GHz while it is about 300GHz for solid-state and dye lasers. So from solid-state lasers, we can have very short laser pulses (10fs).

Average and peak power

Assume the energy, E , contained in every pulse is constant. Power is just the time rate of change of the energy flow (energy per unit time). So this leads us to define two different types of power. 1. Definition of peak power : Rate of energy flow in every pulse. 2. Definition of average power : Rate of energy flow averaged over one full period (recall that f=1/T ). Solve both for E and equate: Rearranging variables allows us to define a new quantity called Duty Cycle, the fractional amount of time the laser is on during any given period.

Modes of the laser beam

Laser modes can be classified as

1. Transverse Electromagnetic Modes

They are the electromagnetic distribution developed by the oscillation inside the cavity (optical resonator) In many lasers, the symmetry of the optical resonator is restricted by polarization elements such as Brewster's angle windows. In these lasers, transverse modes with rectangular symmetry are formed. These modes are designated TEMmn with m and n being the horizontal and vertical orders of the pattern. The intensity at point x,y is given by:

Wave equation looks like harmonic oscillator Ex: E = E e -it

n E + E =0 c
2 2

Transverse laser modes

d 2x k + x=0 2 dt m

Separate out z dependence

2E E 2 E 2 E 2 + 2ik + + z z x2 y2 n 2 + k 2 E = 0 c

Solutions for x and y are Hermite polynomials

Frequencies of transverse modes

How to make a laser operate in a single basic transverse mode?

2. Longitudinal modes
These are formed by the standing waves developed inside the cavity resonator They can be defined as the standing oscillating electromagnetic waves which are defined by the cavity geometry.

Focal spot size

It determines the maximum energy density that can be achieved when the laser beam power is set, so the focal spot size is very important for material processing. When a beam of finite diameter D is focussed by a lens onto a plane, the individual parts of the beam striking the lens can be imagined to be point radiators of new wave front. The light rays passing through the lens will converge on the focal plane and interfere with each other, thus constructive and destructive superposition take place, light energy is distributed as described in figure below. The central maximum contains about 86% of the total power.

The focusing diameter is measured between the points where the intensity has fallen to 1/e 2 of the central peak value. For a rectangular beam with a plane wave front, the diffraction limited beam diameter, which is the smallest focal diameter, is given by:

For a circular beam For multi-mode beam TEMplq, the focal spot size is larger than the above two values. The smallest possible focal sopt size in this case is: Where f is the lens focal length, D is the beam diameter, There are other factors that affect focal spot size, such as spherical aberration and thermal lensing effects. Most lenses are made with a spherical shape, but they cannot be of perfect shape, there exist spherical aberration. Lenses in laser systems transmit or reflect high power laser radiation, laser power variations can cause shape changes of the lenses, so the focal point will change when the radiation power changes, thus affect the focal spot size.

Depth of focus
The laser light is first converged at the lens focal plane, then diverges to wider beam diameter again. The depth of focus is the distance over which the focused beam has about the same intensity, it is defined as the distance over which the focal spot size changes 5%~5%.

f is the lens focal length, D is the unfocussed beam diameter.

Longer depth of focus is preferred, because equal energy density along the beam is preferred when using the laser to process materials.

Polarization