Intensity fluctuations and spatial coherence of a single polarized component of a saturating amplified-spontaneous-emission source

Journal Article · Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1980 · Phys. Rev., A; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.22.1018· OSTI ID:5256154

Chung, J C; Huang, J C; Abraham, N B

Intensity fluctuations of the amplified-spontaneous-emission (ASE) output of a saturated 3.51-..mu..m xenon-helium cw gas-laser amplifier have been characterized by measurements of the first seven normalized cumulants of the intensity probability distribution function (IPDF) for a single linear polarization. ASE output at all amplifier lengths measured (60 to 200 cm) displays some degree of gain-saturation distortion of the negative exponential IPDF expected for linearly amplified spontaneous emission. At long lengths (heavy saturation) the higher cumulants (initially (n-1)exclamation for the nth normalized cumulant) are substantially reduced to order unity. However, the normalized variance (second cumulant) is only slightly reduced and appears to be approaching a long-length limiting value of approximately 0.45. The output shows a high degree of spatial coherence at both long and short lengths studied.

• Research Organization: Department of Physics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081
• OSTI ID: 5256154
• Journal Information: Phys. Rev., A; (United States), Vol. 22:3
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
GAS LASERS
EMISSION SPECTRA
COHERENT RADIATION
FLUCTUATIONS
GAIN
HELIUM
LUMINOSITY
XENON
CRYOGENIC FLUIDS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTS
FLUIDS
LASERS
NONMETALS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
RARE GASES
SPECTRA
VARIATIONS
420300* - Engineering- Lasers- (-1989)