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Concept
Laser construction
Summary
A laser is constructed from three principal parts:
An energy source (usually referred to as the pump or pump source),
A gain medium or laser medium, and
Two or more mirrors that form an optical resonator.
The pump source is the part that provides energy to the laser system. Examples of pump sources include electrical discharges, flashlamps, arc lamps, light from another laser, chemical reactions and even explosive devices. The type of pump source used principally depends on the gain medium, and this also determines how the energy is transmitted to the medium. A helium–neon (HeNe) laser uses an electrical discharge in the helium-neon gas mixture, a Nd:YAG laser uses either light focused from a xenon flash lamp or diode lasers, and excimer lasers use a chemical reaction.
The gain medium is the major determining factor of the wavelength of operation, and other properties, of the laser. Gain media in different materials have linear spectra or wide spectra. Gain media with wide spectra allow tuning of the laser frequency. There are hundreds if not thousands of different gain media in which laser operation has been achieved (see list of laser types for a list of the most important ones). The gain medium is excited by the pump source to produce a population inversion, and it is in the gain medium where spontaneous and stimulated emission of photons takes place, leading to the phenomenon of optical gain, or amplification.
Examples of different gain media include:
Liquids, such as dye lasers. These are usually organic chemical solvents, such as methanol, ethanol or ethylene glycol, to which are added chemical dyes such as coumarin, rhodamine, and fluorescein. The exact chemical configuration of the dye molecules determines the operation wavelength of the dye laser.
Gases, such as carbon dioxide, argon, krypton and mixtures such as helium–neon. These lasers are often pumped by electrical discharge.
Solids, such as crystals and glasses. The solid host materials are usually doped with an impurity such as chromium, neodymium, erbium or titanium ions.
Official source
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