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A cold-atom random laser

Nature Physics volume 9, pages 357–360 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

In conventional lasers optical cavities are used to provide feedback to gain media. Mirrorless lasers can be built by using disordered structures to induce multiple scattering, which increases the path length in the medium, providing the necessary feedback1. Interestingly, light or microwave amplification by stimulated emission also occurs naturally in stellar gases2,3,4 and planetary atmospheres5,6. The possibility of additional scattering-induced feedback4,7—random lasing8,9,10,11,12,13,14—could explain the unusual properties of some space masers15. Here, we report experimental evidence of random lasing in a controlled, cold atomic vapour, taking advantage of Raman gain. By tuning the gain frequency in the vicinity of a scattering resonance, we observe an enhancement of the light emission due to random lasing. The unique possibility to both control the experimental parameters and to model the microscopic response of our system provides an ideal test bench for better understanding natural lasing sources, in particular the role of resonant scattering feedback in astrophysical lasers.

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Figure 1: Working principle of the random laser.
Figure 2: Fluorescence measurement.
Figure 3: Random laser emission around δ = 0.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from ANR (project ANR-06-BLAN-0096), CG06, PACA, DGA and the Research Executive Agency (programme COSCALI, No. PIRSES-GA-2010-268717). We thank R. Carminati and S. Skipetrov for fruitful discussions, and A. Aspect and S. Tanzilli for useful comments on the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. N. Mercadier & V. Guarrera

    Present address: Present addresses: Saint-Gobain Recherche, 39 quai Lucien Lefranc, 93303 Aubervilliers, France (N.M.); LNE-SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, UPMC, 61 avenue de l’Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France (V.G.),

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Non Linéaire de Nice, CNRS, Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, 1361 route des Lucioles, 06560 Valbonne, France

    Q. Baudouin, N. Mercadier, V. Guarrera, W. Guerin & R. Kaiser

Authors
  1. Q. Baudouin
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  2. N. Mercadier
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  3. V. Guarrera
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  4. W. Guerin
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  5. R. Kaiser
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Contributions

Q.B., N.M. and V.G. carried out the experiment and analysed the data; Q.B., N.M. and R.K. developed the theory; Q.B., W.G. and R.K. wrote the paper; R.K. supervised the project. Q.B. and N.M. contributed equally to the study. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Kaiser.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Baudouin, Q., Mercadier, N., Guarrera, V. et al. A cold-atom random laser. Nature Phys 9, 357–360 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2614

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