2009/03/31 by William Guerin, Nicolas Mercadier, Davide Brivio +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Atom (system on chip) #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Degenerate energy levels #Laser #Lasing threshold #Materials science #Molecule #Optics #Physics #Polarizability #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Raman scattering #Raman spectroscopy #Random laser #Random lasers and scattering media #Rayleigh scattering #Scattering #Ultracold atom #Zeeman effect #cond-mat.dis-nn #physics.atom-ph #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1364/oe.17.011236
published as Optics express 17, 14 (2009) 11236
openalex publication_date 2009/06/22 · arxiv created 2009/06/23 · arxiv updated 2015/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We address the problem of achieving a random laser with a cloud of cold atoms, in which gain and scattering are provided by the same atoms. In this system, the elastic scattering cross-section is related to the complex atomic polarizability. As a consequence, the random laser threshold is expressed as a function of this polarizability, which can be fully determined by spectroscopic measurements. We apply this idea to experimentally evaluate the threshold of a random laser based on Raman gain between non-degenerate Zeeman states and find a critical optical thickness on the order of 200, which is within reach of state-of-the-art cold-atom experiments.