F

Applications

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12.12 Noise
Why can masers be used as low noise amplifiers? Mainly, because their operation is not dependent on the motion of charge carriers, whose density and velocity are subject to fluctuations. So, we managed to get rid of one source of noise, but we have now another kind of noise, namely that due to
spontaneous emission.

The amount of noise generated in an arnplifier may be characterized by a parameter called 'noise temperature'. a lolv 'noise temperafure' rneans a small amount of noise- For a maser it can bc shown that under ideal conditions* this noise temperature is numerically equal to the negative tempsrature of the emission mechanism. Hence, the aim is to havc a low negative temperature. that is, largc population invcrsion. How can r.ve achieve large population inve-rsion'l With reference to our three-level maser's'iheme. rve have to do t'nvo things: (i) purnp hard so that the population of levels 3 and 1 bectlnrc roughl;- equal. (ii) keep the device at a low temperaturei, so that the relatil'c number of atoms is higher in level I . Be careful, we are talking norv of three different'temperatures'. The maser has to work at a low (ordinary) ternperature to cet a lor"' negative (inversion) temperature. u'hich happens to be equal to the noise temperature of the amplif rer. Now what is the minimum noise ternperalure one can achieve? Can u'e approach the zero negative temperature and thus the zero noise temperature'l We can certainly approach the zero neaatilL- rcmperature b;- cooling thc arnplitier towards 0 K. As the acrual temperarurL- approaches absoh.rte zcro. the ratio
number of atorns in lcvel
I

* ldeal conditions mean high gain, no ohmic losses. and no reflections from a noisv load-

r Low' temperatures help incidentall-".- in reducing the ohmic losses as wcll.

number o1'atorns in levcl

tends to infinit_v. Hence. afier purnping. the negative temperature tends to zero. But spontaneous emission does not disappear. since it is proportional to the number of atoms in level 3. Thus. the noise temperature cannot reach zero. It turns out that. as the inversion temperature tends to zero, the noise

temperature tends to the finite value of ft1,/k. u'here u is the fiequency of operation. When u : 5 x 109 Hz. the limiting noise temperature comes to about 0.25 K. Experimental results on lnasers cooled to liquid helium temperatures are not far from this lalue. Noise ternperatures around 2 K have actually been
measured.

All I have said so tar about noise applies to lasers as rvell. though the numerical values will be radically different. For the argon laser mentioned before, v : 6.6 x l0laHz. givin,e Lo,.c - 30000K as the theoretically
available minimum.

12.13 Applications
Finally I should like to say a fe"v t'ords about applications. What are lasers good for? Surprisingly. an answer to this question \\ras not expected when the first lasers were put on the bench. It is truc to say that never has so much effort been expended on a device with so little regard to its ultimate usefulness. Lasers were developed for their own sake. I suppose that in the trade most people's reaction was that sooner or later something useful was bound to corne out of it. Radio waves have provided some