In conventional lasers, the optical cavity that confines the photons also determines essential characteristics of the lasing modes such as wavelength, emission pattern, directivity, and polarization. In random lasers, which do not have mirrors or a well-defined cavity, light is confined within the gain medium by means of multiple scattering. The sharp peaks in the emission spectra of semiconductor powders, first observed in 1999, has therefore lead to an intense debate about the nature of the lasing modes in these so-called lasers with resonant feedback. In this paper, we review numerical and theoretical studies aimed at clarifying the nature of the lasing modes in disordered scattering systems with gain. The last decade has witnessed the emergence of the idea that even the low-Q resonances of such open systems could play a role similar to the cavity modes of a conventional laser and produce sharp lasing peaks. We will focus here on the near-threshold single-mode lasing regime where nonlinear effects associated with gain saturation and mode competition can be neglected. We will discuss in particular the link between random laser modes near threshold and the resonances or quasi-bound (QB) states of the passive system without gain. For random lasers in the localized (strong scattering) regime, QB states and threshold lasing modes (TLM) were found to be nearly identical within the scattering medium. These studies were later extended to the case of more lossy systems such as random systems in the diffusive regime where it was observed that increasing the openness of such systems eventually resulted in measurable and increasing differences between quasi-bound states and lasing modes. Very recently, a theory able to treat lasers with arbitrarily complex and open cavities such as random lasers established that the threshold lasing modes are in fact distinct from QB states of the passive system and are better described in terms of a new class of states, the so-called constant-flux states. The correspondence between QB states and lasing modes is found to improve in the strong scattering limit, confirming the validity of initial work in the strong scattering limit.
Active control of the pump spatial profile is proposed to exercise control over random laser emission. We demonstrate numerically the selection of any desired lasing mode from the emission spectrum. An iterative optimization method is employed, first in the regime of strong scattering where modes are spatially localized and can be easily selected using local pumping. Remarkably, this method works efficiently even in the weakly scattering regime, where strong spatial overlap of the modes precludes spatial selectivity. A complex optimized pump profile is found, which selects the desired lasing mode at the expense of others, thus demonstrating the potential of pump shaping for robust and controllable singlemode operation of a random laser.PACS numbers: 42.55. Zz,42.25.Dd Multiple scattering of light in random media can be actively manipulated through spatial shaping of the incident wavefront [1]. This technique has allowed advances in focusing [2][3][4], and imaging [5,6], paving the road to actual control of light transport in strongly scattering media [7][8][9]. Introducing gain in disordered media allows amplification of multiply scattered light, leading to the observation of random lasing [10]. The broad range of systems where it has been studied [11] and the fundamental questions it has raised [12,13] has captivated the community for this last decade. Prospective of random lasing is however strongly hindered by the absence of emission control: random lasers are highly multimode with unpredictable lasing frequencies and polydirectional output. Manipulation of the underlying random structure [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and recent work constraining the range of lasing frequencies [24,25] have resulted in significant progress toward possible control. However, the ability to choose a specific frequency in generic random lasing systems has not yet been achieved. The spatial profile of the pump is an interesting degree of freedom readily available in random laser (e.g., [26,27]). In a regime of very strong scattering where the modes of the random system are spatially localized [28], local pumping allows selection of spatially non-overlapping modes [29,30]. In weaker scattering media however (e.g., [31][32][33]), several hurdles appear toward achieving fine control. Selecting modes is complicated by a narrow distribution of lasing thresholds [34,35] and spatial mode overlap. Increased pumping required in these lossy systems begins to alter the random laser itself. Moreover, modifying the shape of the pump introduces changes to both the spatial and spectral properties of lasing modes [33,[36][37][38]. Such difficulties are typically absent in more conventional lasers, which have employed pump shaping, both electrically [39][40][41][42] and optically [43], to select favorable lasing modes. The question is, can shaping of the incident pump field achieve taming of random lasers?In this letter, we exercise control over the distribution of lasing thresholds via the pump geometry to choose the random laser em...
A study on the effects of optical gain nonuniformly distributed in one-dimensional random systems is presented. It is demonstrated numerically that even without gain saturation and mode competition, the spatial nonuniformity of gain can cause dramatic and complicated changes to lasing modes. Lasing modes are decomposed in terms of the quasi modes of the passive system to monitor the changes. As the gain distribution changes gradually from uniform to nonuniform, the amount of mode mixing increases. Furthermore, we investigate new lasing modes created by nonuniform gain distributions. We find that new lasing modes may disappear together with existing lasing modes, thereby causing fluctuations in the local density of lasing states.
We have developed a numerical method based on the transfer matrix to calculate the quasimodes and lasing modes in one-dimensional random systems. Depending on the relative magnitude of the localization length versus the system size, there are two regimes in which the quasimodes are distinct in spatial profile and frequency distribution. In the presence of uniform gain, the lasing modes have one-to-one correspondence to the quasimodes in both regimes. Local excitation may enhance the weight of a mode within the gain region due to local amplification, especially in a weakly scattering system.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.