Laser : Optical Pumping

Optical pumping uses light to create the necessary population inversion for a laser. Usually high pressure xenon or krypton lamps are used to excite solid or liquid laser systems. The active material in the laser absorbs the light from the pump lamp, promoting the population from the ground state to the higher energy state. The material used in the laser can be continuously exposed to the pumping light which creates a continuous wave laser (CW). A pulsed laser can be created by using flashes of pumping light.

In optical pumping there are three types of efficiency: transfer, lamp radiative, and pump quantum efficiency. Transfer efficiency is the ratio of the energy created by the lamp and the power of the light emitted by the laser. The lamp radiative efficiency is the measure of how much electrical power is converted into light in the optical lamp. Pump quantum efficiency accounts for the ratio of population that decays to the correct energy level and population that decays either back to the ground state or another incorrect energy level. For example, the overall pumping rate of the first ruby laser was around 1.1%.

The average pump rate for optical pumping depends on the total efficiency of the pump (ηp ), volume of the laser material (V), ground state population (N_g), power input (P), and frequency of the lasing transition (ν₀):