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Course Information

Professor: Dr. Charles Durfee

Office: Meyer Hall 330

Meeting Times:

class: M W 11:00-11:50 AM Meyer Hall 375

lab: Th 9-11:50, Meyer Hall 275

Announcements

16 Nov 2013

I just sent out an email with the study guide and links to homework solutions. I will post the study guide here a bit later in the morning.

14 Nov 2013

Notes are posted and up to date.

31 Oct 2013

Notes are posted and up to date.

23 Oct 2013:

The manuals for the Thorlabs scanning Fabry-Perot are posted below. Please have a look at these before coming to lab tomorrow.

Homework 5 is posted below. Due Monday, 4 November.

22 Oct 2013:

Hint for problem 3: The integration over the volume of the crystal is to be able to normalize the leading coefficient for the distribution of the inversion density. So on the one hand, you can figure out how much pump energy is absorbed by the crystal (input - transmitted), then figure out how much of that is available to be extracted (accounting for photon energies). Then when you integrate over the inversion density distribution, the normalization of that distribution is set by the known total number of atoms in the inverted state. Also note that we can assume the pump power decreases to near zero by the edges of the crystal, so you don't need to know the actual crystal radius.

17 Oct 2013:

Class notes are up do date, posted below.

15 Oct 2013:

Homework 4 is posted below, due 23 Oct in class.

23 Sept 2013:

Homework 3 is posted below, due 30 Sept in class.

14 Sept 2013:

The full set of notes is posted below. Later I'll divide it up according to class days, but it is all there in one file for now. I apologize for the delay - with the flooding I spent most of the last few days digging drainage ditches to manage water flow. I hope everyone has been able to stay safe and dry. Because of the delay, I will give you till wednesday in class to turn in the homework 2. Feel free to email with me with any questions on homework.

Note that to get to the Mathematica file for the homework, you need to right-click or control-click and save the linked file rather than opening it directly.

7 Sept 2013:

Homework 2 is now posted, due in class Monday 16 Sept.

26 August 2013:

Notes for classes 1 and 2 are posted. I know a lot of material I went through today was new to you and I went quickly through it - don't worry - you'll see more of this in 462, and we'll see plenty of applications as we go along.

23 August 2013:

Homework 1 is posted below. It will be due Monday, 2 Sept.

21 August 2013: Welcome to Laser Physics!

Office hours

Times - 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: Brenden Villars (bvillars@mymail.mines.edu)

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 2013

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