Saturable absorption

Saturable absorption

Saturable absorption is a property of materials where the absorption of light decreases with increasing light intensity. Most materials show some saturable absorption, but often only at very high optical intensities. SESAMs, dyes and carbon nanotubes are useful for saturable absorption.

Saturable absorbers are useful in laser cavities. The key parameters for a saturable absorber are its wavelength range (where it absorbs), its dynamic response (how fast it recovers), and its saturation intensity and fluence (at what intensity or pulse energy it saturates). They are commonly used for passive Q-switching.

At high intensity of pump, the laser gain medium is so excited that the lower laser level is drained. In this case, the absorption of pump is saturated.However, in many optically-pumped lasers, the density of excitations is not high, and the absorption of pump is not saturated.

See also

* two-photon absorption
*gain medium


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Absorption (electromagnetic radiation) — An overview of electromagnetic radiation absorption. This example discusses the general principle using visible light as specific example. A white beam source emitting light of multiple wavelengths is focused on a sample (the complementary color… …   Wikipedia

  • Fiber laser — A fiber laser or fibre laser is a laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare earth elements such as erbium, ytterbium, neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, and thulium. They are related to doped fiber amplifiers,… …   Wikipedia

  • Mode-locking — is a technique in optics by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (10−12 s) or femtoseconds (10−15 s). The basis of the technique is to induce a fixed phase… …   Wikipedia

  • Vector soliton — Among all the soliton considered, the optical soliton draws the most attention as it is possible to generate ultrafast pulses and has wider application. optical soliton can be classified as two groups:temporal soliton and spatial soliton.however …   Wikipedia

  • Quantum well — A quantum well is a potential well with only discrete energy values. One technology to create quantization is to confine particles, which were originally free to move in three dimensions, to two dimensions, forcing them to occupy a planar region …   Wikipedia

  • Photoelectrochemical processes — Photons emitted in a coherent beam from a laser Composition {{{composition}}} Interactions Electromagnetic, Optical, C …   Wikipedia

  • Modelocking — Mode locking is a technique in optics by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (10 12s) or femtoseconds (10 15s).The basis of the technique is to induce a fixed phase… …   Wikipedia

  • Laser femtoseconde — Un laser femtoseconde est un type de laser particulier qui produit des impulsions ultra courtes dont la durée est de l ordre de quelques femtosecondes à quelques centaines de femtosecondes (1 fs = 1 femtoseconde = 10 15 secondes). Ce type de… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Fructose — D Fructose …   Wikipedia

  • 3D optical data storage — is the term given to any form of optical data storage in which information can be recorded and/or read with three dimensional resolution (as opposed to the two dimensional resolution afforded, for example, by CD). [ Three Dimensional Optical Data …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”