L20

Question 1

Relaxation oscillations

Answer 1

• occur when the pump rate abruptly increases,
• leading to damped oscillations in intensity and gain until new steady-state values are reached.

Question 2

Gain clamping

Answer 2

• Occurs when the pump rate increases gradually above the threshold
• leading to a rapid increase in light intensity

Question 3

Damped harmonic oscillator

Name an example and details

Answer 3

• A laser cavity behaves as a damped harmonic oscillator
• Overshoot and decay are influenced by the cavity and gain medium structure.

Question 4

Spatial hole burning

Answer 4

Is the distortion of the gain shape caused by saturation effects of a standing wave.

i dont understand what this is about

Question 5

Purcell effect

Answer 5

Is the enhancement of spontaneous emission rates in atoms within a resonant cavity.

Question 6

Pulsed laser

Answer 6

Pulsed lasers produce bursts of light by controlling the population inversion and photon flux.

Question 7

Q-switching

Answer 7

Modulating losses with an active or passive element to generate high-energy pulses.

Question 8

Femtosecond pulses

Answer 8

Femtosecond pulses: Extremely short laser pulses, achieved through mode locking techniques.

Question 9

Kerr-lens mode-locking

Answer 9

Nonlinear phase delay in a medium causes self-focusing, used for passive mode locking of lasers.

non-linear relevant?

Question 10

Intra-cavity self-phase-modulation

Answer 10

High optical intensity causes a nonlinear phase delay, described as a nonlinear change in the refractive index.

belongs to non-linear optics?

Question 11

Nobel Prize 2023

Answer 11

Awarded for generating attosecond pulses of light to study electron dynamics in matter.

Question 12

Laser types

Answer 12

Examples of laser types include:

• UV-VIS lasers
• IR lasers
• CO2 lasers
• Free Electron lasers

Question 13

Laser gain bandwidth

add context?

Answer 13

Laser gain bandwidth varies for different solid-state materials.

Question 14

Lasing media

Answer 14

Lasing media for compact solid-state lasers include edge-emitting and surface-emitting configurations.

Question 15

Material challenges

add context!

Answer 15

Challenges in creating blue laser diodes involve high melting temperatures and lattice constant mismatches.

Question 16

AlN buffer layers

Answer 16

Proposed by Akasaki to address issues in blue diode laser production.

Question 17

Vertical CSEL

Answer 17

Vertical CSEL: Easy to integrate to fibers, with heating effects in the multiple layer structure.

Question 18

Edge emitting lasers

Answer 18

Principle of edge emitting lasers: p-n junction devices, forward biased, converting energy to photons.

Question 19

Compact solid-state lasers

Answer 19

Materials for compact solid-state lasers include GaN, GaAs, SiC, TiO2, ZnO, MgAl2O4, and MgO.