Amplified spontaneous emission. IV. Beam divergence and spatial coherence

For pt. III see abstr. A54492 of 1971. The origins of beam divergence in amplified spontaneous emission are discussed and theoretical models are developed to predict what their effect would be in real systems. The divergence of the beam is experimentally investigated for the 3.39 mu m He-Ne and the 0.614 mu m Ne systems and compared with the theories. Good agreement is achieved in pure neon for a theory which depends upon the parametric relationship between intensity and length of active medium. In the case of He-Ne although the theory gives the correct qualitative prediction, the absolute magnitude of the effect is wrong by a factor of about 1.7. Measurements of the degree of spatial coherence as a function of length and inversion density of the medium and for the variation of spatial coherence across the tube for a given length and inversion density of medium, are presented for the neon system.