A random laser with cold atoms

摘要

Conventional lasers make use of optical cavities to provide feedback to gain media. Conversely, mirrorless lasers can be built by using disordered structures to induce multiple scattering, which increases the effective path length in the gain medium and thus provides the necessary feedback [1]. These so-called random lasers potentially offer a new and simple mean to address applications. Several kinds of random-laser devices, all based on condensed-matter media, have been developed in the last decade. Understanding their properties and finding applications have become a major research subject in the photonics community [2,3].