Is it farther or further?
|population inversion |
The condition of having enough excited or high-energy states distributed in a material that a chain-reaction of stimulated emission can occur. Lasers, for example, need a constant power source that maintains population inversion in order to generate radiation continuously, since each stimulated emission reduces the population of high-energy states. See also stimulated emission.
in physics, the redistribution of atomic energy levels that takes place in a system so that laser action can occur. Normally, a system of atoms is in temperature equilibrium and there are always more atoms in low energy states than in higher ones. Although absorption and emission of energy is a continuous process, the statistical distribution (population) of atoms in the various energy states is constant. When this distribution is disturbed by pumping energy into the system, a population inversion will take place in which more atoms will exist in the higher energy states than in the lower