2021/04/13 by Muys, Peter
#FOS: Physical sciences #Optics (physics.optics)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2104.07063
In the past, a number of heat engine models have been devised to apply the principles of thermodynamics to a laser. The best one known is the model using a negative temperature to describe population inversion. In this paper, we present a new temperature scale not based on reservoir temperatures. This is realized by revealing a formal mathematical similarity between the expressions for the optimum power generated by an endoreversible heat engine and the optimum output-coupled power from a three-level laser resonator. As a consequence, the theory of endoreversibility can be applied to enable a new efficiency analysis of the cooling of high-power lasers. We extend the endoreversibility concept also to the four-level laser model.