Revision as of 20:48, 23 August 2015

Course Information

Professor: Dr. Charles Durfee

Office: Meyer Hall 330

Meeting Times:

class: M W 11:00-11:50 AM Berthoud Hall 205

lab: Th 9-11:50, Meyer Hall 263

Announcements

23 August 2015: Welcome to Laser Physics!

Office hours

Times - tentative: W2-5, Th12-2

Let me know if you cannot make any of these office hours. I have monthly meetings on wednesdays, so the wednesday hours will occasionally shift to 1-4.

Look for me either in my office or in the advanced lab on the second floor.

TA: Zack Fleegal (zfleegal@gmail.com

TA hours: TBD

Course Material

Syllabus and Reading List

Main text: O. Svelto, Principles of Lasers, 5th edition. It is available for purchase at the bookstore. There is also online access to the book from a campus/VPN connection:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n72670/#section=672851&page=1

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader Course syllabus for 2015

Homework Assignments and Midterm:

Grading policy:

Turn in homework on time for full credit. At the time we give homeworks back to you, solutions will be available in printed form in a binder that I'll keep, but you can make a copy.

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader Homework 1: due 2 Sept 2013 Homework 2: now due 18 Sept 2013. Since this is a mathematical file, do a right click (or control-click) and save the linked file rather than trying to open it directly. Homework 3: due Monday 30 Sept 2013. Since this is a mathematical file, do a right click (or control-click) and save the linked file rather than trying to open it directly. Homework 4: due Wednesday 23 Oct 2013. Homework 5: due Monday 4 Nov 2013.

Lab exercises:

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader Lab 1: optical alignment skills Lab 2: HeNe gain and lasing Lab 2: some background reading about HeNe lasers. Lab 3: interferometry Lab 4: HeNe resonator modes Lab 5: HeNe resonator modes 2

Final project

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader

Lecture Notes

While these notes are primarily to help me give my lectures, I'm posting them to help you fill in things you may have missed in class or to show the details of calculations we don't have time to work through. If you have any constructive input on how to make these more useful to read, let me know.

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader Class 1: introduction Class 2: waves, EM waves, energy density Classes 2-6: full set of notes Class 7: material response to EM waves. We didn't finish all of these on Wedenesday. QM approach to transitions, natural, doppler and collisional broadening saturation, gain, and amplifiers interference and interferometers raytracing, intro to diffractive propagation diffraction and Gaussian beams resonator design unstable resonators, generalized ABCD equations for laser operation, threshold threshold, output coupling, pumping efficiency considerations

Mathematica Demos

These aren't actually pdf's. Do a "save link as" to save these to your computer, then open with Mathematica.

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader Spectral_shapes.nb : shows BB radiation curves vs frequency and wavelength, also compare Gaussian and Lorentzian shapes fresnel_eqns.nb : interactive plots relating to the Fresnel equations for reflection, transmission at a dielectric interface Polarization_tools.nb : polarization vectors and matrices Fabry-Perot_etalon.nb : interactive plots relating to the Fabry-Perot etalon OC_optimization.nb : Optimizing output coupling in a CW oscillator ABCD_raytracing.nb : ABCD matrices for raytracing, including functions for plotting rays and setting up a sequence ABCD_cavity_analysis_class.nb : ABCD matrices for Gaussian beams and resonators Laser Canvas 5: zip file for a windows program written at CSU. This program is usable but is not supported.

Lab design information

Thorlabs Fabry-Perot interferometer

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader data sheet for the Thorlabs Fabry Perot manual for FP driver.

Diode-pumped solid state laser

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader data sheet for 2300 series 808nm pump laser for DPSS

Thermistor calculator to convert measured resistance to temperature thermistor calculator

Compass 215M single longitudinal mode green laser

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader data sheet for 5V power supply for Compass control module

External cavity diode laser

These downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader data sheet for diode laser

Links

Wavelength Electronics: Spec page for diode power cable spec page

Siskiyou: Spec page for flexure mirror mount flexure mount page

Thorlabs: diode collimation tube collimation page