3/21/22, 2:02 PM Helium–neon laser - Wikipedia

Helium–neon laser
A helium–neon laser or He-Ne laser, is a type of gas laser
whose high energetic medium gain medium consists of a mixture
of 10:1 ratio of helium and neon at a total pressure of about 1 torr
inside of a small electrical discharge. The best-known and most
widely used He-Ne laser operates at a wavelength of 632.8 nm, in
the red part of the visible spectrum.

Contents Helium–neon laser at the University

History of He-Ne laser development of Chemnitz, Germany

Construction and operation

Applications
See also
References

History of He-Ne laser development

The first He-Ne lasers emitted infrared at 1150 nm, and were the first gas lasers and the first lasers
with continuous wave output. However, a laser that operated at visible wavelengths was much more in
demand, and a number of other neon transitions were investigated to identify ones in which a
population inversion can be achieved. The 633  nm line was found to have the highest gain in the
visible spectrum, making this the wavelength of choice for most He-Ne lasers. However, other visible
and infrared stimulated-emission wavelengths are possible, and by using mirror coatings with their
peak reflectance at these other wavelengths; He-Ne lasers could be engineered to employ those
transitions, including visible lasers appearing red, orange, yellow, and green.[1] Stimulated emissions
are known from over 100 μm in the far infrared to 540 nm in the visible.

Because visible transitions have somewhat lower gain, these lasers generally have lower output
efficiencies and are more costly. The 3.39 μm transition has a very high gain, but is prevented from
use in an ordinary He-Ne laser (of a different intended wavelength) because the cavity and mirrors
are lossy at that wavelength. However, in high-power He-Ne lasers having a particularly long cavity,
superluminescence at 3.39 μm can become a nuisance, robbing power from the stimulated emission
medium, often requiring additional suppression.

The best-known and most widely used He-Ne laser operates at a wavelength of 632.8 nm, in the red
part of the visible spectrum. It was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1962,[2][3] 18 months
after the pioneering demonstration at the same laboratory of the first continuous infrared He-Ne gas
laser in December 1960.[4]

Construction and operation

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The gain medium of the laser, as suggested by its name, is a mixture of helium and neon gases, in
approximately a 10:1 ratio, contained at low pressure in a glass envelope. The gas mixture is mostly
helium, so that helium atoms can be excited. The excited helium atoms collide with neon atoms,
exciting some of them to the state that radiates 632.8 nm. Without helium, the neon atoms would be
excited mostly to lower excited states, responsible for non-laser lines.

A neon laser with no helium can be constructed, but it is much more difficult without this means of
energy coupling. Therefore, a He-Ne laser that has lost enough of its helium (e.g., due to diffusion
through the seals or glass) will lose its laser functionality because the pumping efficiency will be too
low.[5] The energy or pump source of the laser is provided by a high-voltage electrical discharge
passed through the gas between electrodes (anode and cathode) within the tube. A DC current of 3 to
20 mA is typically required for CW operation. The optical cavity of the laser usually consists of two
concave mirrors or one plane and one concave mirror: one having very high (typically 99.9%)
reflectance, and the output coupler mirror allowing approximately 1% transmission.

Schematic diagram of a helium–neon laser

Commercial He-Ne lasers are relatively small devices, among gas lasers, having cavity lengths usually
ranging from 15 to 50  cm (but sometimes up to about 1  meter to achieve the highest powers), and
optical output power levels ranging from 0.5 to 50 mW.

The red He-Ne laser wavelength of 633 nm has an actual vacuum wavelength of 632.991 nm, or about
632.816  nm in air. The wavelengths of the stimulated emission modes lie within about 0.001  nm
above or below this value, and the wavelengths of those modes shift within this range due to thermal
expansion and contraction of the cavity. Frequency-stabilized versions enable the wavelength of a
single mode to be specified to within 1 part in 108 by the technique of comparing the powers of two
longitudinal modes in opposite polarizations.[6] Absolute stabilization of the laser's frequency (or
wavelength) as fine as 2.5 parts in 1011 can be obtained through use of an iodine absorption cell.[7]

The mechanism producing population inversion and light amplification in a He-Ne laser plasma[4]
originates with inelastic collision of energetic electrons with ground-state helium atoms in the gas
mixture. As shown in the accompanying energy-level diagram, these collisions excite helium atoms
from the ground state to higher energy excited states, among them the 23S1 and 21S0 (LS, or Russell–
Saunders coupling, front number  2 indicates that an excited electron is n  =  2 state) are long-lived
metastable states. Because of a fortuitous near-coincidence between the energy levels of the two He
metastable states and the 5s2 and 4s2 ( Paschen notation[8]) levels of neon, collisions between these
helium metastable atoms and ground-state neon atoms results in a selective and efficient transfer of
excitation energy from the helium to neon. This excitation energy transfer process is given by the
reaction equations

He*(23S1) + Ne1S0 → He(1S0) + Ne*4s2 + ΔE,

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He*(21S) + Ne1S0
+ ΔE → He(1S0) +
Ne*5s2,

where * represents an
excited state, and ΔE is
the small energy
difference between the
energy states of the two
atoms, of the order of
0.05  eV, or 387  cm−1,
which is supplied by
kinetic energy.
Excitation-energy
transfer increases the
population of the neon
4s2 and 5s2 levels
manyfold. When the Energy levels in a He-Ne Laser
population of these two
upper levels exceeds that
of the corresponding lower level, 3p4, to which they are optically
connected, population inversion is present. The medium becomes
capable of amplifying light in a narrow band at 1.15  μm
(corresponding to the 4s2 to 3p4 transition) and in a narrow band
at 632.8 nm (corresponding to the 5s2 to 3p4 transition). The 3p4
level is efficiently emptied by fast radiative decay to the 3s state,
eventually reaching the ground state.

The remaining step in utilizing optical amplification to create an

optical oscillator is to place highly reflecting mirrors at each end of
Ring He-Ne Laser
the amplifying medium so that a wave in a particular spatial mode
will reflect back upon itself, gaining more power in each pass than
is lost due to transmission through the mirrors and diffraction.
When these conditions are met for one or more longitudinal modes, then radiation in those modes
will rapidly build up until gain saturation occurs, resulting in a stable continuous laser-beam output
through the front (typically 99% reflecting) mirror.

The gain bandwidth of the He-Ne laser is dominated by Doppler broadening rather than pressure
broadening due to the low gas pressure and is thus quite narrow: only about 1.5 GHz full width for the
633  nm transition.[6][9] With cavities having typical lengths of 15 to 50  cm, this allows about 2 to
8  longitudinal modes to oscillate simultaneously (however, single-longitudinal-mode units are
available for special applications). The visible output of the red He-Ne laser, long coherence length,
and its excellent spatial quality, makes this laser a useful source for holography and as a wavelength
reference for spectroscopy. A stabilized He-Ne laser is also one of the benchmark systems for the
definition of the meter.[7]

Prior to the invention of cheap, abundant diode lasers, red He-Ne lasers were widely used in barcode
scanners at supermarket checkout counters. Laser gyroscopes have employed He-Ne lasers operating
at 633  nm in a ring laser configuration. He-Ne lasers are generally present in educational and
research optical laboratories.
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Applications
Red He-Ne lasers have an enormous number of industrial and
scientific uses. They are widely used in laboratory demonstrations
in the field of optics because of their relatively low cost and ease of
operation compared to other visible lasers producing beams of
similar quality in terms of spatial coherence (a single-mode
Gaussian beam) and long coherence length (however, since about
Spectrum of a helium–neon laser
1990 semiconductor lasers have offered a lower-cost alternative
illustrating its very high spectral
for many such applications).
purity (limited by the measuring
Starting in 1978, HeNe tube lasers (manufactured by Toshiba and apparatus). The 0.002 nm
NEC) were used in Pioneer LaserDisc players. This continued until bandwidth of the stimulated
emission medium is well over
the 1984 model lineup, which contained infrared laser diodes
10 000 times narrower than the
instead. Pioneer continued to use laser diodes in all subsequent
spectral width of a light-emitting
players until the format's discontinuation in 2009.
diode (see its spectrum for
comparison), with the bandwidth of
See also a single longitudinal mode being
much narrower still.
List of laser types

References
1. Willet, C.S. (1974). An Introduction to Gas Lasers. Pergamon Press. pp. 407–411.
2. White, A.D.; Rigden, J.D. (1962). "Correspondence: Continuous gas maser operation in the
visible" (https://doi.org/10.1109%2Fjrproc.1962.288157). Proceedings of the IRE. Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 50 (7): 1697. doi:10.1109/jrproc.1962.288157 (https://
doi.org/10.1109%2Fjrproc.1962.288157). ISSN 0096-8390 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0096-83
90).
3. White, A.D. (October 2011). "Recollections of the first continuous visible laser" (https://www.osa-o
pn.org/home/articles/volume_22/issue_10/features/recollections_of_the_first_continuous_visible_l
ase/). Optics and Photonics News. Vol. 22, no. 10. p. 34–39.
4. Javan, A.; Bennett, W.R.; Herriott, D.R. (1 February 1961). "Population inversion and continuous
optical maser oscillation in a gas discharge containing a He–Ne mixture" (https://doi.org/10.1103%
2Fphysrevlett.6.106). Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society (APS). 6 (3): 106–110.
doi:10.1103/physrevlett.6.106 (https://doi.org/10.1103%2Fphysrevlett.6.106). ISSN 0031-9007 (htt
ps://www.worldcat.org/issn/0031-9007).
5. "Sam's Laser FAQ – Helium-Ne Lasers" (http://www.k3pgp.org/Notebook/Lasersam/laserhen.htm
#hentoo0). K3PGP.org.
6. Niebauer, T.M.; Faller, James E.; Godwin, H.M.; Hall, John L.; Barger, R.L. (1988-04-01).
"Frequency stability measurements on polarization-stabilized He–Ne lasers". Applied Optics. The
Optical Society. 27 (7): 1285. doi:10.1364/ao.27.001285 (https://doi.org/10.1364%2Fao.27.00128
5). ISSN 0003-6935 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0003-6935).
7. Iodine-stabilized helium–neon laser (https://web.archive.org/web/20060721065251/http://museu
m.nist.gov/object.asp?ObjID=50). National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST
Museum (Report). U.S. Department of Commerce. Archived from the original (http://museum.nist.
gov/object.asp?ObjID=50) on 21 July 2006.

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8. "Notes on the Paschen notation" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120618234059/http://technology.

niagarac.on.ca/lasers/Chapter3.html). Archived from the original (http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/
lasers/Chapter3.html) on 2012-06-18.
9. "Sam's Laser FAQ" (http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhen.htm#henhlc0). RepairFAQ.

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