Light. Vol.2. Laser Light Dynamics - H.Haken, North-Holland, 1985.pdf - FIZ Fizyka atomów i zjawisk optycznych. Physics of atoms and visual phenomena - kf.mtsw

H.HAKEN

LASER

TIGHTDYNAMICS

NOR]HHOttAND

LIGHT

Volume 2

LASER LIGHT DYNAMICS

H. HAKEN

It! jrirut fur Theoretische Physik, Stuttgart

\ORTH-HOLLAND PHYSICS PUBLISHING

if1STERDAM. NEW YORK . OXFORD. TOKYO

Preface to the Preface

Dear Reader,

Before you read this book, and even its preface, the following remarks

might be useful to you. Since this book is "Volume 2" you may be inclined

to believe that you must know all the contents of "Volume 1" before you

can start reading (and, of course, understanding) "Volume 2". But this is

not the case. The present "Volume 2" again starts at a rather elementary

level, and then proceeds step by step to more difficult matters. Only at these

later stages some more advanced theoretical background is required which

then can be taken from "Volume I". I have chosen this way of presentation

to make the theory of laser light accessible to a broad audience-ranging

from students at the beginning of their graduate studies to professors and

scientists interested in recent developments. For details on the relations

between the chapters of these books consult the list at the end of the

introduction.

H. Haken

Preface

This book is a text which applies to students and professors of physics.

Because it offers a broad view on laser physics and presents most recent

results on the dynamics of laser light, such as self-pulsing and chaos, it will

be of interest also to scientists and engineers engaged in laser research or

development. This text starts at a rather elementary level and will smoothly

lead the reader into the more difficult problems of laser physics, including

the basic features of the coherence and noise properties of laser light.

In the introductory chapters, typical experimental set-ups and laser

materials will be discussed, but the main part of this book will be devoted

to a theoretical treatment of a great variety of laser processes. The laser, or

the optical maser, as it was originally called, is one of the most important

inventions of this century and has found a great number of important

applications in physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering, telecommunica-

tions, and other fields. It bears great promises for further applications, e.g.

in computers. But also from the point of view of basic research, a study of

the physical processes which produce the unique properties of laser light

are equally fascinating. The laser is a beautiful example of a system far

from thermal equilibrium which can achieve a macroscopically ordered

state through "self-organization". It was the first example for a nonequili-

brium phase transition, and its study eventually gave birth to synergetics,

a new interdisciplinary field of research.

I got involved in laser physics at a rather early stage and under most

fortunate circumstances. In 1960 I was working as visiting scientist at the

Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill. There I soon learned that these

laboratories were searching for a revolutionary new light source. Two years

earlier, in 1958, this source had been proposed by Schawlow and Townes,

who derived in particular the laser condition and thus demonstrated the

feasibility of this new device. At Bell Telephone Laboratories I soon got

involved in a theoretical study of the laser processes and continued it at

Stuttgart University. I developed a laser theory whose basic features I

published in 1962 and which I then applied to various concrete problems,

viii Preface

jointly with my coworkers. At about the same time, in 1964, Willis Lamb

published his theory, which he and his coworkers applied to numerous

problems. It is by now well known that these two theories, which are called

semiclassical and which were developed independently, are equivalent. The

next step consisted in the development of the laser quantum theory which

allows one to predict the coherence and noise properties of laser light (and

that of light from lamps). This theory which I published in 1964 showed

for the first time that the statistical properties of laser light change dramati-

cally at laser threshold. In the following years my group in Stuttgart carried

this work further, e.g. to predict the photon statistics close to laser threshold.

From 1965 on, Scully and Lamb started publishing their results on the

quantum theory of the laser, using a different approach, and Lax and

Louise11presented their theory. Again, all of these theories eventually turned

out to be more or less equivalent. In those years experimental laser physics

developed (and is still developing) at an enormous pace, but because I shall

mainly deal with laser theory in this book, I have to cut out a representation

of the history of that field.

From my above personal reminiscences it may transpire that laser theory

and, perhaps still more, laser physics in general have been highly competitive

fields of research. But, what counts much more, laser physics has been for

us all a fascinating field of research. When one looks around nowadays,

one can safely say that is has lost nothing of its original fascination. Again

and again new laser materials are found, new experimental set-ups invented

and new effects predicted and discovered. Undoubtedly, for many years to

come, laser physics will remain a highly attractive and important field of

research, in which fundamental problems are intimately interwoven with

applications of great practical importance. I hope that this book will let

transpire the fascination of this field.

Over the past nearly 25 years I greatly profited from the cooperation or

discussion with numerous scientists and I use this oppprtunity to thank all

of them. There is Wolfgang Kaiser, who was the first at BTL with whom I

had discussions on the laser problem. Then there are the members of my

group at Stuttgart who in the sixties, worked on laser theory and who gave

important contributions. I wish to mention in particular R. Graham, H.

Geffers, H. Risken, H. Sauermann, Chr. Schmid, H.D. Vollmer, and W.

Weidlich. Most of them now have their own chairs at various universities.

Among my coworkers who, in later years, contributed to laser theory and

its applications are in particular J. Goll, A. Schenzle, H. Ohno, A. Wunderlin

and J. Zorell. Over the years I enjoyed many friendly and stimulating

discussions with F.T. Arecchi, W.R. Bennett, Jr., N. Bloembergen,

R. Bonifacio, J.H. Eberly, C.G.B. Garret, R.J. Glauber, F. Haake, Yu.

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