Abstract

A new set of general rate equations has been derived by second quantization, which describe the operation of Q-switched lasers in terms of parameters of the system. The relative importance of induced emission, correlation, spatial cross relaxation, and interference on energy build-up are estimated near the initial time, when the active ions are predominantly in the upper state. At this period, only induced emission contributes significantly to the radiant energy growth. Because of the random location of the active ions in the laser material and because of the choice of nonlossy form of vector potential, the full effects of coherence and correlation are not manifest. Also, during this period, the spectral width for the most probable axial mode varies inversely as the square root of time. On the other hand, the linewidth due to mode selection varies inversely as the square of the time. Furthermore, for a laser with maximum inversion and with gain equal to 5×10⁹ sec⁻¹, we can consider all the active ions to be behaving identically only for times much less than 4 nsec.

© 1964 Optical Society of America

Study of Relaxation Processes in Nd Using Pulsed Excitation

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