Ethel Falls

ILLUSTRATION

ILLUSTRATION_178_REPORT

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the

stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.The word laser is an anacronym that

originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.The

first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based

on theoretical work by Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.A laser differs

from other sources of light in that it emits light that is coherent.Spatial coherence allows a

laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as optical communication,

laser cutting, and lithography.It also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances

(collimation), a feature used in applications such as laser pointers, lidar, and free-space

optical communication.Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which permits them

to emit light with a very narrow frequency spectrum.Temporal coherence can also be used

to produce ultrashort pulses of light with a broad spectrum but durations as short as an

attosecond.Lasers are used in optical disc drives, laser printers, barcode scanners, DNA

sequencing instruments, fiber-optic and free-space optical communications, semiconductor

chip manufacturing (photolithography, etching), laser surgery and skin treatments, cutting

and welding materials, military and law enforcement devices for marking targets and

measuring range and speed, and in laser lighting displays for entertainment.Semiconductor

lasers in the blue to near-UV have also been used in place of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to

excite fluorescence as a white light source; this permits a much smaller emitting area due to

the much greater radiance of a laser and avoids the droop suffered by LEDs; such devices
are already used in some car headlamps.== Terminology ==

The first device using amplification by stimulated emission operated at microwave

frequencies, and was called a maser, for "microwave amplification by stimulated emission

of radiation".When similar optical devices were developed they were first called optical

masers, until "microwave" was replaced by "light" in the acronym, to become laser.Today,

all such devices operating at frequencies higher than microwaves (approximately above

300 GHz) are called lasers (e.g.infrared lasers, ultraviolet lasers, X-ray lasers, gamma-ray

lasers), whereas devices operating at microwave or lower radio frequencies are called

masers.The back-formed verb "to lase" is frequently used in the field, meaning "to give off

coherent light," especially about the gain medium of a laser; when a laser is operating, it is

said to be "lasing".The terms laser and maser are also used for naturally occurring coherent

emissions, as in astrophysical maser and atom laser.A laser that produces light by itself is

technically an optical oscillator rather than an optical amplifier as suggested by the

acronym.It has been humorously noted that the acronym LOSER, for "light oscillation by

stimulated emission of radiation", would have been more correct.With the widespread use

of the original acronym as a common noun, optical amplifiers have come to be referred to as

laser amplifiers.== Fundamentals ==

Modern physics describes light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation as the group

behavior of fundamental particles known as photons.Photons are released and absorbed

through electromagnetic interactions with other fundamental particles that carry electric

charge.A common way to release photons is to heat an object; some of the thermal energy

being applied to the object will cause the molecules and electrons within the object to gain

energy, which is then lost through thermal radiation, that we see as light.This is the process

that causes a candle flame to give off light.Thermal radiation is a random process, and thus
the photons emitted have a range of different wavelengths, travel in different directions,

and are released at different times.The energy within the object is not random, however: it

is stored by atoms and molecules in "excited states", which release photons with distinct

wavelengths.This gives rise to the science of spectroscopy, which allows materials to be

determined through the specific wavelengths that they emit.The underlying physical

process creating photons in a laser is the same as in thermal radiation, but the actual

emission is not the result of random thermal processes.Instead, the release of a photon is

triggered by the nearby passage of another photon.This is called stimulated emission.For

this process to work, the passing photon must be similar in energy, and thus wavelength, to

the one that could be released by the atom or molecule, and the atom or molecule must be

in the suitable excited state.The photon that is emitted by stimulated emission is identical to

the photon that triggered its emission, and both photons can go on to trigger stimulated

emission in other atoms, creating the possibility of a chain reaction.For this to happen,

many of the atoms or molecules must be in the proper excited state so that the photons can

trigger them.In most materials, atoms or molecules drop out of excited states fairly rapidly,

making it difficult or impossible to produce a chain reaction.The materials chosen for lasers

are the ones that have metastable states, which stay excited for a relatively long time.In

laser physics, such a material is called an active laser medium.Combined with an energy

source that continues to "pump" energy into the material, it is possible to have enough

atoms or molecules in an excited state for a chain reaction to develop.Lasers are

distinguished from other light sources by their coherence.Spatial (or transverse) coherence

is typically expressed through the output being a narrow beam, which is diffraction-limited.