Stimulated emission energy of an absorbed photon causes an identical but opposite atomic transition: from the lower level to a higher energy level. In normal media at thermal equilibrium, absorption exceeds stimulated emission because there are more electrons in the lower energy states than in the higher energy states. However, when a population inversion is present, the rate of stimulated emission exceeds that of absorption, and a net optical amplification can be achieved. Such a gain medium, along with an optical resonator, is at the heart of a laser or maser. Lacking a feedback mechanism, laser amplifiers and superluminescent sources also function
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation emission takes place in the structure under electrical pumping. A bias voltage is applied to a weakly coupled n-doped GaAs/AlAs superlattice and increases the amplitude of the coherent hypersound oscillations generated by a femtosecond optical pulse. An evidence of hypersound amplification by stimulated emission of phonons emerges, in a system where the inversion of the electron populations for phonon-assisted transitions exists. This evidence is provided by the bias-induced amplitude increase and experimentally observer spectral narrowing of the superlattice phonon mode with a frequency of 441 GHz. The main target of this type of experiments is to highlight the realization probability