Light and thermodynamics: the three-level laser as an endoreversible heat engine
Optics
2021-04-16 v1
Abstract
In the past, a number of heat engine models have been devised to apply the principles of thermodynamics to a laser. The best one known is the model using a negative temperature to describe population inversion. In this paper, we present a new temperature scale not based on reservoir temperatures. This is realized by revealing a formal mathematical similarity between the expressions for the optimum power generated by an endoreversible heat engine and the optimum output-coupled power from a three-level laser resonator. As a consequence, the theory of endoreversibility can be applied to enable a new efficiency analysis of the cooling of high-power lasers. We extend the endoreversibility concept also to the four-level laser model.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2104.07063,
title = {Light and thermodynamics: the three-level laser as an endoreversible heat engine},
author = {Peter Muys},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.07063},
year = {2021}
}