Related papers: Precise Measurement of Laser Power using an Optome…
Optical tweezers are highly versatile laser traps for neutral microparticles, with fundamental applications in physics and in single molecule cell biology. Force measurements are performed by converting the stiffness response to…
We report an $\textit{in situ}$ mass measurement of approximately-$4.7{\text -}\mu$m-diameter, optically levitated microspheres with an electrostatic co-levitation technique. The mass of a trapped, charged microsphere is measured by holding…
Measurement of stray light in a complex optical system can be a complex task. We developed a method to measure coherent stray light inside an assembled device, determining all stray light sources and their relative contribution. The method…
The deflection of a laser beam traveling through a modulated electric field is measured using phase-sensitive detection to place an upper bound on photon charge. An upper limit of $10^{-14}e$ is obtained. The experiment involves a number of…
We have addressed the challenge to carry out the angular tilt stabilization of a laser guiding mirror which is intended to route a laser beam with a high energy density. Such an application requires good angular accuracy as well as large…
Exceptional pulse contrast can be critical for ultraintense laser experiments, particularly when using solid density targets, and their use is becoming widespread. However, current plasma mirror technology is becoming inadequate for the new…
We present the measurement of squeezed light generation using an engineered optomechanical system fabricated from a silicon microchip and composed of a micromechanical resonator coupled to a nanophotonic cavity. Laser light is used to…
The measurement of weak continuous forces exerted on a mechanical oscillator is a fundamental problem in various physical experiments. It is fundamentally impeded by quantum back-action from the meter used to sense the displacement of the…
In this work, the force due to radiation pressure is measured with sub-10 pN sensitivity, corresponding to less than 2 mW of optical power. The apparatus adds homemade reflectors to a commercial Cavendish balance, which consists of a…
We measure the motional fluctuations of a micromechanical mirror using a Michelson interferometer, and demonstrate its interferometric stability. The position stability of the micromirror is dominated by the thermal mechanical noise of the…
Pulsed UV lasers can provide useful "testbeams" for observatories that use optical detectors, especially fluorescence detectors, to measure high energy cosmic-rays. The light observed by the detector is proportional to the energy of the…
Optical tweezers are widely used as a highly sensitive tool to measure forces on micron-scale particles. One such application is the measurement of the electric charge of a particle, which can be done with high precision in liquids, air, or…
We present a technique to estimate the proportion of coherent emission in the light emitted by a practical laser source without spectral filtering. The technique is based on measuring interferometric photon correlations between the output…
Optomechanical systems have been proven to be very useful for precision sensing of a variety of forces and effects. In this work, we propose an opto-magno-mechanical setup for spatial displacement sensing where one mirror of the optical…
Laser power stabilization plays an important role in modern precision instruments based on atom-laser interactions. Here we demonstrate an alternative active control method of laser power utilizing the conservation law in an acoustic optic…
We show that extreme vacuum pressures can be measured with current technology by detecting the photons produced by the relativistic Thomson scattering of ultra-intense laser light by the electrons of the medium. We compute the amount of…
It was recently demonstrated that laser filamentation was able to generate an optically transparent channel through cloud and fog for free-space optical communications applications. However, no quantitative measurement of the interaction…
We have developed a scheme to measure the optical torque, exerted by a laser beam on a phase object, by measuring the orbital angular momentum of the transmitted beam. The experiment is a macroscopic simulation of a situation in optical…
Many optical measurement techniques, such as light scattering from wavelength-scale particles or detecting motion from a surface with an optical lever, encode information in a complex radiation pattern. Extracting all available information…
We have developed a method to measure the mirror reflectivity of telescopes. While it is relatively easy to measure the local reflectivity of the mirror material, it is not so straightforward to measure the amount of light that it focuses…