A report on Photon, Light and Laser

Photons are emitted by a cyan laser beam outside, orange laser beam inside calcite and its fluorescence

A triangular prism dispersing a beam of white light. The longer wavelengths (red) and the shorter wavelengths (blue) are separated.

Red (660 & 635 nm), green (532 & 520 nm) and blue-violet (445 & 405 nm) lasers

Photoelectric effect: the emission of electrons from a metal plate caused by light quanta – photons.

The electromagnetic spectrum, with the visible portion highlighted

The cone shows possible values of wave 4-vector of a photon. The "time" axis gives the angular frequency (rad⋅s−1) and the "space" axis represents the angular wavenumber (rad⋅m−1). Green and indigo represent left and right polarization

Thomas Young's double-slit experiment in 1801 showed that light can act as a wave, helping to invalidate early particle theories of light.

Beam of sun light inside the cavity of Rocca ill'Abissu at Fondachelli-Fantina, Sicily

A helium–neon laser demonstration. The glow running through the center of the tube is an electric discharge. This glowing plasma is the gain medium for the laser. The laser produces a tiny, intense spot on the screen to the right. The center of the spot appears white because the image is overexposed there.

In 1900, Maxwell's theoretical model of light as oscillating electric and magnetic fields seemed complete. However, several observations could not be explained by any wave model of electromagnetic radiation, leading to the idea that light-energy was packaged into quanta described by . Later experiments showed that these light-quanta also carry momentum and, thus, can be considered particles: The photon concept was born, leading to a deeper understanding of the electric and magnetic fields themselves.

$Due to refraction, the straw dipped in water appears bent and the ruler scale compressed when viewed from a shallow angle.$

Spectrum of a helium–neon laser. The actual bandwidth is much narrower than shown; the spectrum is limited by the measuring apparatus.

Up to 1923, most physicists were reluctant to accept that light itself was quantized. Instead, they tried to explain photon behaviour by quantizing only matter, as in the Bohr model of the hydrogen atom (shown here). Even though these semiclassical models were only a first approximation, they were accurate for simple systems and they led to quantum mechanics.

Hong Kong illuminated by colourful artificial lighting.

Lidar measurements of lunar topography made by Clementine mission.

Photons in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer exhibit wave-like interference and particle-like detection at single-photon detectors.

Laserlink point to point optical wireless network

Stimulated emission (in which photons "clone" themselves) was predicted by Einstein in his kinetic analysis, and led to the development of the laser. Einstein's derivation inspired further developments in the quantum treatment of light, which led to the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) of the MESSENGER spacecraft

Different electromagnetic modes (such as those depicted here) can be treated as independent simple harmonic oscillators. A photon corresponds to a unit of energy E = hν in its electromagnetic mode.

$Thomas Young's sketch of a double-slit experiment showing diffraction. Young's experiments supported the theory that light consists of waves.$

LASER notebook: First page of the notebook wherein Gordon Gould coined the acronym LASER, and described the elements required to construct one. Manuscript text: "Some rough calculations on the feasibility / of a LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated / Emission of Radiation. /
Conceive a tube terminated by optically flat / [Sketch of a tube] / partially reflecting parallel mirrors..."

Graph showing the history of maximum laser pulse intensity throughout the past 40 years.

Wavelengths of commercially available lasers. Laser types with distinct laser lines are shown above the wavelength bar, while below are shown lasers that can emit in a wavelength range. The color codifies the type of laser material (see the figure description for more details).

A 50 W FASOR, based on a Nd:YAG laser, used at the Starfire Optical Range

A 5.6 mm 'closed can' commercial laser diode, such as those used in a CD or DVD player

Close-up of a table-top dye laser based on Rhodamine 6G

The free-electron laser FELIX at the FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen, Nieuwegein

Lasers range in size from microscopic diode lasers (top) with numerous applications, to football field sized neodymium glass lasers (bottom) used for inertial confinement fusion, nuclear weapons research and other high energy density physics experiments.

The US–Israeli Tactical High Energy weapon has been used to shoot down rockets and artillery shells.

Laser application in astronomical adaptive optics imaging

A photon is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force.

- Photon

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.

- Laser

Like all types of electromagnetic radiation, visible light propagates by massless elementary particles called photons that represents the quanta of electromagnetic field, and can be analyzed as both waves and particles.

- Light

The photon concept has led to momentous advances in experimental and theoretical physics, including lasers, Bose–Einstein condensation, quantum field theory, and the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics.

- Photon

An electron in an atom can absorb energy from light (photons) or heat (phonons) only if there is a transition between energy levels that matches the energy carried by the photon or phonon.

- Laser

Emission can also be stimulated, as in a laser or a microwave maser.

- Light

2 related topics with Alpha

Electromagnetic radiation

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In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, propagating through space, carrying electromagnetic radiant energy.

Shows the relative wavelengths of the electromagnetic waves of three different colours of light (blue, green, and red) with a distance scale in micrometers along the x-axis.

In electromagnetic radiation (such as microwaves from an antenna, shown here) the term "radiation" applies only to the parts of the electromagnetic field that radiate into infinite space and decrease in intensity by an inverse-square law of power, so that the total radiation energy that crosses through an imaginary spherical surface is the same, no matter how far away from the antenna the spherical surface is drawn. Electromagnetic radiation thus includes the far field part of the electromagnetic field around a transmitter. A part of the "near-field" close to the transmitter, forms part of the changing electromagnetic field, but does not count as electromagnetic radiation.

Electromagnetic waves can be imagined as a self-propagating transverse oscillating wave of electric and magnetic fields. This 3D animation shows a plane linearly polarized wave propagating from left to right. The electric and magnetic fields in such a wave are in-phase with each other, reaching minima and maxima together.

Representation of the electric field vector of a wave of circularly polarized electromagnetic radiation.

Electromagnetic spectrum with visible light highlighted

Rough plot of Earth's atmospheric absorption and scattering (or opacity) of various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation

It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible) light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays.

In quantum mechanics, an alternate way of viewing EMR is that it consists of photons, uncharged elementary particles with zero rest mass which are the quanta of the electromagnetic field, responsible for all electromagnetic interactions.

In addition to infrared lasers, sufficiently intense visible and ultraviolet lasers can easily set paper afire.

Stimulated emission

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Stimulated emission is the process by which an incoming photon of a specific frequency can interact with an excited atomic electron (or other excited molecular state), causing it to drop to a lower energy level.

Such a gain medium, along with an optical resonator, is at the heart of a laser or maser.

When an electron absorbs energy either from light (photons) or heat (phonons), it receives that incident quantum of energy.