THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LASER

Salman Suhail
M.Sc PHYSICS
IITGN
Roll no:14510042
salman.suhail@iitgn.ac.in
April 11, 2016

Lab Report

IIT Gandhinagar

Contents
1 ABSTRACT

2 INTRODUCTION

3 THEORY

4 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
4.1 Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Gaussian Nature of Laser beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5
5
5

5 RESULT
7
5.1 Gaussian Nature of Laser Beam at a distance of Z1 = 120 mm 7
5.2 Gaussian Nature of Laser Beam at a distance of Z2 = 170 mm 9
5.3 Polarization Nature of Laser Beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6 CONCLUSION

12

7 REFRENCES

12

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ABSTRACT

Our aim in this experiment is to study about the

The Gaussian nature of laser beam:
To evaluate the diameter of laser Beam(Spot size):
To measure the divergence:
To Study the polarization nature of the laser:

INTRODUCTION

Laser Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation is a

means of creating high power coherent light.Lasers are devices that produce
intense beams of light which are monochromatic and highly directional in
nature.Laser is powerful and extraordinary source of light it is very different
from normal source of light like tungsten lamps, mercury lamps, etc.

THEORY

A Laser has composed of three parts mainly The active medium, the
optical resonatorand the pumping source. The working principle of
laser is based on the stimulated emission and population inversion process.A
typical laser structure is shown in figure below.It have 2 mirrors on its both
side and a cavity or resonator between them.

Figure 1: Structure of a typical laser

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In electromagnetic radiation there are There are three kind of transitions

involve between 2 energy state E1 and E2 are - absorption,spontaneous emission and stimulated emission. A Laser works on the principle of stimulated
emission.
Let me tell you very briefely about these three kind of transitions.
Absorption :
If initially atom is in the lower energy state E1 ,it can be raised to E2
by absorbing a photon of energy E2 E1 = h.This process is called
absorption.
Spontaneous Emission:
If initially the atom is in the lower energy state E2 it can come down
to the lower energy state E1 by just emitting a photo of energy h.
This process is called spontaneous emission.
Stimulated emission: There is another process in which if the atom
is initially in upper state E2 and we shine light on it it can come down
to the lower state E1 by emitting 2 photon of exactly same energy.This
process is called Stimulated emission.

Figure 2: Absorption,Spontaneous emission and stimulated emission

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EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

4.1

Apparatus

figure
3:Apparatus shown in figure.
Optical Rail
Kinematic Laser Mount
Diode Laser
Power supply for Laser
Micrometer
Pinhole Detector
Polariser

4.2

Gaussian Nature of Laser beam

In this experiment we are doing study of T EM00 mode of the optical resonator and hence the intensity of the laser light should be Gaussian in nature.

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The beam spot size is defined as the distance which corresponds to the e12
of the maximum intensity.As usually we know that laser beam highly directionable but as it propagates it diverges up to some extent.The divergence
of a laser can be measured as

=
half of the divergence angle can be calculated as,
=

d2 d1
z2 z1

(1)

(2)
w2 w1
(3)
z2 z1

Switch on the laser and the detector and sure about that the laser beam
falls exactly on the pinhole detector.To scan the whole laser beam we have
to move Micrometer from one end to another end and note down the corresponding current intensity at various value of x.

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5
5.1
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

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RESULT
Gaussian Nature of Laser Beam at a distance of Z1 =
120 mm
Distance (mm)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
12.5
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23

Current (mA)
0.0001
0.0007
0.0031
0.0093
0.0234
0.0345
0.0665
0.0980
0.1552
0.1862
0.2000
0.2000
0.2000
0.1930
0.1781
0.1565
0.1204
0.0816
0.0456
0.0196
0.0058
0.0011
0.0004
0.0002
0.0001

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So the Corresponding Gaussian Curve is given as:

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5.2

IIT Gandhinagar

Gaussian Nature of Laser Beam at a distance of Z2 =

170 mm
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

Distance (mm)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23

Current(mA)
0.0039
0.0079
0.0143
0.0248
0.0386
0.0530
0.0718
0.0876
0.0978
0.1021
0.1070
0.1071
0.1052
0.0991
0.0899
0.0820
0.0669
0.0535
0.0386
0.0247
0.0137
0.0061
0.0025
0.0007

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Figure 1: Gaussian charactristics of laser beam

So from the graph the diameter of the laser beam can be evaluated in the
following way
Emax /e2 =

0.1071
mA = .01445 mA
e2

and henceforth diameter is given by

D = (20 2) m.m = 18 m.m

So divergence of the beam can be evaluated as follows:

tan1

(D2 D1 )
(18 13)
= tan1
= tan1 (.05) = 2.869
2(Z2 Z1 )
100

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5.3

IIT Gandhinagar

Polarization Nature of Laser Beam

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37

rotation of the polarizer

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
190
200
210
220
230
240
250
260
270
280
290
300
310
320
330
340
350
360

Current A
43.3
28.4
16.3
7.4
1.6
0.3
3.1
10.1
20.7
33.5
44.3
57.3
67.3
74.7
73.5
75.2
66.3
56.0
43.1
29.1
16.6
7.3
1.5
0.3
3.4
10.8
21.0
34.2
48.7
60.7
69.7
75.8
76.8
72.0
64.8
55.8
43.0

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So the Corresponding Curve for the above data is given by:

CONCLUSION

with the distance and the curve between Intensity and the polarizing angel
was found to be a cos curve ,where is the angel of the polarizer.

REFRENCES

1.A textbook on Optics by Ajay Ghatak

2. Lab Manual of IITGn
3.Laser Wikipedia
4.Google