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
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, stimulated emission is referenced by 118 other articles, and connects out to optical amplifier, spectral line and absorption.
It is catalogued under topics including Electromagnetic radiation, Laser science and Physical phenomena.
Its subject is documented across 33 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- physical phenomenon
- Subclass of
- electromagnetic radiation
- Image
- RGB Laser Pointer.jpg
- Has use
- laser
Show 4 more facts
- 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.