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Re: LASERS

On Sun, 9 May 1999, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

William Beaty wrote:
What if each exited atom in the laser medium ABSORBED the incoming
photon, and then re-radiated a pair of identical photons? Rather than
appealing to EM-fields to explain the triggered photon emission, or
assuming that the proximity of a nearby photon can mysteriously trigger
the atom to emit an identical one, we would then have a fairly sensible
explanation (although perhaps not one which is correct in a QM sense.)

The atom is already excited. Your "model" assumes another excitation to a
higher level.

Not necessarily. We are told that transparent materials have an index of
refraction because photons are absorbed and re-radiated after a short
delay. How can this occur unless there are appropriate energy levels
available? But when there ARE energy transition levels which are matched
to the illumination frequency, the transparency is not like that of glass,
and instead is very dependant on frequency.

I don't understand how a material such as air or glass can be constantly
absorbing and re-radiating photons regardless of wavelength. It seem to
me that this must be a DIFFERENT process than that which creates
absorbtion lines in gasses and absorbtion bands in solids. If so, then
this "Transparency" kind of absorbtion/emission might be the phenomena
which triggers a pumped atom to dump its stored energy.

I have far too small a library here. I don't find these issues discussed
in any of my small collection of references.

The exactly matching levels would be rare among atoms and
molecules. Yet the phenomenon of "lasing" is rather common; about 30%
of elements, I my memory is correct, have been observed to "lase".

If laser atoms absorb the stimulating photons, then they would emit photon
pairs, and this photon-pairing phenomenon would be measurable. I've
seen mention of "photon pairing" in the literature on lasers.


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