Spontaneous emission luminescent. And there are different forms of luminescence depending on how excited atoms are produced (electroluminescence, chemiluminescence etc.). If the excitation is affected by the absorption of radiation the spontaneous emission is called fluorescence. Sometimes molecules have a metastable level and continue to fluoresce long after the exciting radiation is turned off; this is called phosphorescence. Figurines that glow in the dark are phosphorescent. Lasers start via spontaneous emission, then during continuous operation work by stimulated emission. Spontaneous emission cannot be explained by classical electromagnetic theory and is fundamentally a quantum process. The first person to derive the rate of
Stimulated emission frequency, phase, polarization, and direction of propagation as the incident photons. The photons involved are thus mutually coherent. When a population inversion (formula_6) is present, therefore, optical amplification of incident radiation will take place. Although energy generated by stimulated emission is always at the exact frequency of the field which has stimulated it, the above rate equation refers only to excitation at the particular optical frequency formula_9 corresponding to the energy of the transition. At frequencies offset from formula_9 the strength of stimulated (or spontaneous) emission will be decreased according to the so-called line shape. Considering only homogeneous broadening affecting