stimulated emission
Sign in to saveprocess by which an incoming photon of a specific frequency can interact with an excited atomic electron (or other excited molecular state), causing it to drop to a lower energy level
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- physical phenomenon
- Subclass of
- electromagnetic radiation
- Image
- RGB Laser Pointer.jpg
- Has use
- laser
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- Commons category
- Stimulated emission
- described by source
- Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
- studied by
- laser science
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~15 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Laser light is a type of stimulated emission of radiation.
Stimulated emission is the process by which an incoming photon of a specific frequency can interact with an excited atomic electron (or other excited molecular state), causing it to drop to a lower energy level. The liberated energy transfers to the electromagnetic field, creating a new photon with a frequency, polarization, and direction of travel that are all identical to the photons of the incident wave. This is in contrast to spontaneous emission, which occurs at a characteristic rate for each of the atoms/oscillators in the upper energy state regardless of the external electromagnetic field.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “stimulated emission” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.