You may know that atoms are made up of electrons orbiting a nucleus. To understand this, we need to know a few facts about atoms. It's to do with the physical process by which the light is created. In this context the phrase 'stimulated emission' has a very specific meaning to scientists. Light amplification simply means 'making more of the same light', just like an audio amplifier in your stereo takes sound and makes the same sound louder. ![]() That may not sound terribly enlightening, so lets try to unpack it a bit. The word laser stands for Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It can be focused to an extent, but there are many things you can do with laser light that you can't do with 'normal' light. In other words, the beam is all going in one direction, with only one colour of light, and all the photons are in step! By comparison, the light from a normal light bulb is a wash of different colours, and spreads in all directions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |