Nonlinear behavior of lasers with different schemes of pumping

Abstract

The behavior of a laser intensity as a function of a pump rate is studied. We consider a three-level lasing scheme with two different types of pumping. In the first case, the lower lasing level is depleted to the ground state, and then the pumping is used to excite the atom from the ground state to the upper lasing level. In the second case the pumping is used to excite the atom directly from the lower lasing level to one of the excited states, which is then depleted to the upper lasing level. We refer these two types of pumping as type 1 and type 2, respectively. It is shown that although these two schemes are equivalent mathematically, i.e., they are formally described by the same set of equations, physically their dynamical properties are completely different. It is noted that the pumping of the type 1 does not affect either of lasing levels directly, whereas the pumping of the type 2 does connect the lower lasing level with one of the excited states. It is this difference of the two ways of pumping which is responsible for the crucial difference in the dynamic behavior of the lasing schemes of types 1 and 2.