Energy Exchange Between the Field and the Active Medium of the Waveguide

Abstract

The work based on a semiclassical description, presents the results of studying the processes of absorption and radiation of a field in the form of a standing wave in a waveguide filled with a two-level active medium. Under conditions of spatial inhomogeneity of the field intensity, interference of quasi-periodic oscillations of population inversion occurs in different local regions of the waveguide. A quasiperiodic change in population inversion is determined by the Rabi frequency, which is known to be associated with the probability of induced radiation with a positive population inversion, or induced absorption with its negative value. Since the population inversion change is accompanied by absorption or emission of field quanta, this leads to the exchange of energy between the field and the active medium located in the waveguide. It is shown that the attenuation of a large-amplitude field to a waveguide filled with an unexcited active medium is nonlinear. In the developed mode, this process has the character of energy exchange between the field and the active medium. In this case, the wave attenuation is replaced by its growth, just as it happens in the well-known case of Landau kinetic damping. Competition of the processes of radiation and absorption leads to the fact that the nature of the oscillations (nutations) of the population inversion at different points of the waveguide space is different. The interference of nonsynchronous spatially localized oscillations of the population inversion in the volume of the waveguide leads to changes in the field amplitude. The paper also discusses the process of field excitation in a waveguide with a pre-inverted two-level active medium, taking into account external mechanisms for the absorption of wave energy. Consideration of these problems is important for understanding the processes of generation of induced radiation, which, as noted by C. Towns, is to a large extent coherent radiation.