Laser amplification of incoherent radiation

Abstract

The amplification of noise in a laser amplifier is treated theoretically. The model for the active medium and its description using density-matrix techniques, are taken from the theory of laser operation. The fundamental concern of this investigation is the spectral behavior of the radiation in the nonlinear regime; hence, the formalism is written from the onset in the frequency domain. The statistics of the light are gradually modified by the nonlinear amplification process, and expressions are derived for the rate of change of fluctuations in intensity as a measure of statistical changes. These expressions should be easily susceptible to detailed experimental observations. In addition, the range of validity of Litvak's Gaussian-statistics approximation is discussed with some detail. In the homogeneous-broadening case, the evolution of initially broadband Gaussian radiation toward quasimonochromatic oscillations with laserlike statistics is extensively explored in several numerical examples. The connections of this study with the time-domain work of Risken and Nummedal, on self-pulsing in a ring-laser configuration, are clearly established. Finally, spectral-narrowing and -rebroadening effects in Doppler-broadened media are discussed both analytically and with numerical examples. These examples show the distinct contribution of pulsations in the population ("Raman-type terms"), and saturation phenomena. The predicted narrowing-rebroadening rate is compared with expressions found in previous literature.