Semiconductor Lasers

Abstract

In modern physics, and perhaps this was true earlier, there are two different trends. One group of physicists has the aim of investigating new laws and solving existing contradictions. They believe the result of their work to be a theory; in particular, the creation of the mathematical apparatus of modern physics. As a by-product there appear new principles for constructing devices, physical devices.The other group, on the contrary, seeks to create physical devices using new physical principles. They try to avoid the inevitable difficulties and contradictions on the way to achieving that purpose. This group considers various hypotheses and theories to be the by-product of their activity.Both groups have made outstanding achievements. Each group creates a nutrient medium for the other and therefore they are unable to exist without one another; although, their attitude toward each other is often rather critical. The first group calls the second "inventors," while the second group accuses the first of abstractness or sometimes of aimlessness. One may think at first sight that we are speaking about experimenters and theoreticians. However, this is not so, because both Copyright ? 1965 by the Nobel Foundation. The author is on the staff of the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, U.S.S.R. This article is the lecture he delivered in Stockholm, Sweden, 11 December 1964, when he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, a prize which he shared with A. M. Prokhorov, also of the Lebedev Institute, and Charles H. Townes, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lecture is published here with the permission of the Nobel Foundation and will also be included in the complete volumes of Nobel lectures in English, published by the Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam and New York. 20 AUGUST 1965

Polariton panorama

“…In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), the spontaneous emission of atoms, molecules, and solids is governed not only by the properties of the emitter per se but is also controlled by its local electromagnetic environment. Optical cavities assembled from two parallel mirrors have long been used to confine light, to enhance light-matter interaction and to promote lasing [19]. The probability of interaction between light and matter is enhanced by the number of bounces the photon makes between the mirrors before leaving the cavity, which is conventionally quantified by the cavity finesse F.…”

Transient Joule- and (ac) Josephson-like photon emission in one- and two- nucleon tunneling processes between superfluid nuclei: blackbody and coherent spectral functions

“…Concerning the line shape associated with the coherent infrared and optical oscillator stimulated emission (maser, laser) we refer to [25] (see also [26][27][28]). Doppler broadening and spontaneous emission related to zero point fluctuations result in different full width at half maximum power emission and line profiles.…”

Statistical Mechanics of Systems with Negative Temperature

“…Other examples included the use of electric discharges [38,39] or rapid gas expansions [40]. In the case of semiconductor lasers [41], Basov discusses in his Nobel lecture [42] three different methods, namely:(i) optical pumping by means of an exciting field shined one the sample, (ii) creation of electron-hole pairs through beams of fast electrons, (iii) injection of electrons and holes through p-n junctions.…”