Related papers: Precise Measurement of Laser Power using an Optome…
Reaching light intensities above $10^{25}$ W/cm$^{2}$ and up to the Schwinger limit ($10^{29}$ W/cm$^{2}$) would enable testing decades-old fundamental predictions of Quantum Electrodynamics. A promising yet challenging approach to achieve…
We present total and specular reflectance measurements of various materials that are commonly (and uncommonly) used to provide baffling and/or to minimize the effect of stray light in optical systems. More specifically, we investigate the…
In this paper, we build an apparatus for measuring the optical transmittance and its uniformity for a semispherical surface at normal incidence; the system is primarily comprised of a traditional double-beam photometric framework and a…
A simple, self-calibrating, rotating-waveplate polarimeter is largely insensitive to light intensity fluctuations and is shown to be useful for determining the Stokes parameters of light. This study shows how to minimize the in situ…
Standard optical pump-probe methods analyze a system's temporal response to a laser pulse within sub-femtoseconds to several nanoseconds, constrained by the optical delay line's length. While resistance is a sensitive detector in various…
It has been proposed by Cook (Phys. Scr. T 21, 49 (1988)) to use a short probe laser pulse for state measurements of two-level systems. In previous work we have investigated to what extent this proposal fulfills the projection postulate if…
Lasers can be identified by their relatively long coherence lengths using interferometry. A Mach Zehnder interferometer incorporating liquid crystal polarization modulators is demonstrated as a means of low cost, robust laser detection.…
Proposed, justified and tested measuring of beam spatial coherence, based on the detection of an interference visibility of the equal to intensity of beam replicas emerging under reflection from the rotated plane-parallel plate. The method…
We show theoretically that the noise due to laser induced backaction acting on a small nanosphere levitated in a standing-wave trap can be considerably reduced by utilising a suitable reflective boundary. We examine the spherical mirror…
We study the inverse problem of localization (imaging) of a laser beam from measurements of the intensity of light scattered off-axis by a Poisson cloud of small particles. Starting from the wave equation, we analyze the microscopic…
We describe an experiment in which a mirror is cooled by the radiation pressure of light. A high-finesse optical cavity with a mirror coated on a mechanical resonator is used as an optomechanical sensor of the Brownian motion of the mirror.…
The optical lever is a precision displacement sensor with broad applications. In principle, it can track the motion of a mechanical oscillator with added noise at the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL); however, demonstrating this performance…
Laser speckle can provide a powerful tool that may be used for metrology, for example measurements of the incident laser wavelength with a resolution beyond that which may be achieved in a commercial device. However, to realise highest…
Levitated optomechanics is showing potential for precise force measurements. Here, we report a case study, to show experimentally the capacity of such a force sensor. Using an electric field as a tool to detect a Coulomb force applied onto…
The mirror relative motion of a suspended Fabry-Perot cavity is studied in the frequency range 3-10 Hz. The experimental measurements presented in this paper, have been performed at the Low Frequency Facility, a high finesse optical cavity…
We carry out analysis of optomechanical system formed by moveable mirror of Fabry-Perot cavity pumped by detuned laser. Optical spring arising from detuned pump creates in the system several eigen modes which could be treated as high-Q…
We present a simple precision-method to quickly and accurately measure the diameters of Gaussian beams, Airy spots, and central peak of Bessel beams ranging from the sub-millimeter to many centimeters without specialized equipment. Simply…
We have used a precision calibrated photodiode as the fundamental metrology reference in order to determine the relative throughput of the PanSTARRS telescope and the Gigapixel imager, from 400 nm to 1050 nm. Our technique uses a tunable…
Experiments in the field of optomechanics do not yet fully exploit the photon polarization degree of freedom. Here experimental results for an optomechanical interaction in a polarization nondegenerate system are presented and schemes are…
Many areas of optical science require an accurate measurement of optical spectra. Devices based on laser speckle promise compact wavelength measurement, with attometer-level sensitivity demonstrated for single wavelength laser fields. The…