Frequency
Combs
William Neely
Mentored by: Brian Washburn
Welcome to my K-State Physics REU 2008 homepage. Here you can find out more about what I’m doing this summer along with information about myself and some useful links to help you understand what I’m doing. I will also try to keep a diary of what I have accomplished each day. Oh and here’s some storm chasing pictures!
Project Goals: Learn a lot and have a lot of fun in the process! Oh and get a program built to collect data from and run a monochromator. Oh and ummm, add some pump lasers to a laser diode and generate a supercontinuum from that set-up. Oh and get the optical table arranged for space saving (includes building hanging shelves and such). Oh and somehow come up with an improved design for an F-2F interferometer and get that into a computer box for easy portability.
Research Strategy: Read a lot and learn a lot so as to be able to accomplish said goals. Work hard! And just do whatever can be done at the time (like right now we can’t splice in the pumps for the laser because the silly splicer won’t focus).
Research Progress: Monochromator program is now finished (Program). The program allows the user to run the monochromator just like they would our $40,000 dollar spectrometer (the monochromator setup costs maybe $1,000). The program can run scans, save data to specified files, calibrate for detector sensitivity, change the speed at which a scan is run (more data points), find peaks, and much more.
Added a phase shifter to the Carbon Fiber Nanotube laser. Successfully generated a supercontinuum spanning appr. 1050 nm. Currently working on designing a setup that will fit inside a computer box. The setup includes two detectors, the nanotube laser, an f-2f interferometer, and an amplification system. Design is basically complete and I have spent this week building components for the design.
Final Presentation: You
can find my presentation here.
It explains a lot of what I did. My apologies for not maintaining this website
as well as I had hoped.
Interim Presentations: Program and Spectrum.
Supercontinuum:
A laser pulse containing a full octave of light (1000nm).
Mode-locking: When constructive interference causes pulses to form in a laser.
Phase-locking: Stabilizing the repetition rate of pulses in a modelocked laser.
Frequency Comb: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/newsfromnist_frequency_combs.htm
Laser: A light source with a
very narrow wavelength region.
Laser Diode: A laser whose active medium is a
semiconductor.
LabView: A program from National
Instruments which can be used to write code that specifies how certain
instruments (such as a stepper motor) run.
Nanotube: A structure made of carbon that is used as a saturable absorber in our mode-locked laser.
Saturable Absorber: Something that absorbs light.
Splice: A process by which two fibers are connected. Splicing is an extremely difficult process and often has to be done multiple times.
Useful Links:
American Physical Society Statements on Ethics
My Research group's home page