Abstract

Laser-induced atomic coherence is a subject of much current interest.^1-3 Under suitable conditions, light amplification without population inversion can be induced by optical coherence among the coupled states driven by laser fields. Therefore, an inversionless laser oscillator may be realized by using coherently driven atomic systems as active media. It has been predicted that optical coherence and quantum interference may lead to interesting statistical properties, such as narrower intrinsic line- widths and amplitude squeezing, in inversionless lasers.^4-6

© 1995 Optical Society of America