Introduction To Lasers

Douglass Schumacher
Phone: 292-7035
Office: 4114, Physics Research Building.
Office hours: By appointment, but feel free to stop by.
dws@mps.ohio-state.edu

Physics 780I20, #16846-2 (Autumn)
TR @ 1:30 - 3:18
Sm ith Laboratory Rm 2186

Text: Principles of Lasers, 4th Ed. by Orazio Svelto (Plenum, 1998)



Jump Station

Information on this page: Announcements Homework Applets Links
Other pages: Book
References
Course Announcement Laser Facilities

Announcements

October 31. Artificially generated gaussian TEM00 here.

September 21. First day of class.

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Homework

Homework (solutions in pdf format)

#1 This review problem as well as problems: 1.6, 1.7, 2.6, 2.10
(Chap. 1 problems: Set beta to 1. In 2.6 "concentration" just means number density. Work 2.10 from first principles by considering a volume of space and the energy inside it and flowing into it.)
solution
#2 2.5, 2.7, 2.8 (quantum yield is tau/tau_rad), 2.9, 2.11 solution
#3  Assignment     Quick and Dirty Integration     Excel Sheet solution
#4 Assignment solution
#5 Assignment solution
#6 Assignment solution
#7  Assignment solution
#8 Assignment solution

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Applets From Various Sites

Basic Laser Concepts
(Many of these are from this site.)

Gaussian Modes Illustrated Computer generated idealized case, as opposed to the handout I gave you.
Cavity Mode Shows your location in the stability diagram as you modify cavity parameters. Find a configuration that gives you a large mode everywhere. Try other variations.
Laser dynamics You select the pump/loss/decay parameters and it solves the rate equations. Excellent for understanding self-Q-switching, transient response, and the approach to steady-state.

Ultrashort Pulse Laser concepts

Fourier Synthesis Uses your speakers so you can hear the result.
Movies  There are a couple movies at this site near the bottom of the page. Probably not anything you don't already understand (after taking this course), but satisfying to watch anyway.
Group velocity and phase velocity Simple illustration of how a wave looks when differing speeds are used. Try it at the highest frequency and follow the motion near the node in the envelope function.
Group Velocity Demonstration Allows you to superpose two arbitrary waves specified using C-like syntax.

Other concepts

Fermat's Principle Illustrated for reflection and refraction.
Subluminal Illustrates how a pulse can appear to propagate faster than light. (The author should have named it "superluminal" I suppose.) I like this one.

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Links

Societies Journals Sites w/ Relevant Content Lasers Articles  Laser Tutorials For the Hobbyist A Few Laser Companies

Societies

OSA -- Optical Society of America
IEEE -- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
SPIE -- The International Society for Optical Engineering

Journals (for the topics covered in class, my favorites are Optics Letters, JOSA B, and IEEE JQE)

OSA Online Journals   Applied Optics, JOSA A, JOSA B, Optics Express, and Optics Letters.
IEEE Journal Of Quantum Electronics
Optics and Photonics News
Laser Focus World
Photonics, in particular, see Photonics Spectra
The Industrial Physicist (American Institute of Physics) often has articles of importance to lasers and optics.

Sites With Content On Advanced Topics Used In Many OSU Laser Labs (especially ultra fast lasers) -
* Indicates the site is a link list.

Why You Need Chirped Pulse Amplification
Chirped Pulse Amplification
St. Andrews Ultrashort Pulse Laser Tutorial
Trebino's FROG site
* OpticsNotes

Sites About Lasers and Laser Science -
Not closely related to class, but might be of interest.
* Indicates the site is a link list.

Free electron laser at UCSB
 X-Ray Laser
* Quantum Optics and Atom Optics

Articles -
This is a new section. I'll place a few, selected articles that might help the student who is looking for the next step beyond class.

Science magazine has a special issue on coherence. See it here.

Laser Tutorials

Rami Arieli - The Laser Adventure - extensive, with discussion of a variety of applications.

For The Hobbyist (yes, there is a large community that enjoys building its own lasers)

The Homebuilt Lasers Page
The Laser, Optics and Holography Ring

Laser Companies (Just a few that are likely to be in your labs.)

Coherent, Inc.
Spectra-Physics
Quantronix

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