Related papers: A Laser Interferometer for the Undergraduate Teach…
Diverse applications in photonics and microwave engineering require a means of measurement of the instantaneous frequency of a signal. A photonic implementation typically applies an interferometer equipped with three or more output ports to…
The application of precision interferometers is generally restricted to expensive and smooth high-quality surfaces. Here, we offer a route to ultimate miniaturization of interferometer by integrating beam splitter, reference mirror and…
We present a laser frequency stabilization system that uses a transfer interferometer to stabilize slave lasers to a reference laser. Our implementation uses off-the-shelf optical components along with microcontroller-based digital…
We describe an optical bench in which we lock the relative frequencies or phases of a set of three lasers in order to use them in a cold atoms interferometry experiment. As a new feature, the same two lasers serve alternately to cool atoms…
Photonic integration offers the potential to bring complex high-performance optical systems to the form factor of a compact semiconductor chip. However, the range of system functions accessible critically depends on the extent to which…
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and its metrology chain have to fulfill stringent performance requirements to enable the space-based detection of gravitational waves. This implies the necessity of performance verification…
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) aims to observe gravitational waves in the mHz regime over its 10-year mission time. LISA will operate laser interferometers between three spacecrafts. Each spacecraft will utilize independent…
We present a lecture demonstration which produces a visible, beating interference pattern that is the optical analog of demonstrations which produce audible, beating sound-wave interference. The setup is a compact, portable Mach-Zehnder…
The interferometers being planned for second generation LIGO promise and order of magnitude increase in broadband strain sensitivity--with the corresponding cubic increase in detection volume--and an extension of the observation band to…
Many undergraduate radio astronomy courses are unable to give a detailed treatment of aperture synthesis due to time constraints and limited math backgrounds of students. We have taken a laboratory-based approach to teaching radio…
Optical levitation of nanoscale particles has emerged as a platform for precision measurement. Extremely low damping, together with optical interferometric position detection, makes possible exquisite force measurement and promises…
This study introduces an experimental teaching method that employs optic fiber interferometry (OFI) to investigate forced vibration phenomena. It is designed for undergraduate physics majors with foundational mechanics and optics training…
In this work, we investigate a tool for hybrid quantum systems that implements a transducer to map small position changes of a micro-mechanical membrane onto the polarization of a laser beam. This is achieved with an interferometric setup…
We present two experiments in closed-loop feedback control. In the first experiment, students control the pointing angle of a laser to "lock" the laser onto a "target." In the second, students stabilize the pathlength difference in two arms…
We report on developing, characterizing, and verifying a compact, monolithic laser interferometric assembly designed for high-precision two- and three-axis displacement measurements in coordinate positioning systems. The design targets OEM…
Stellar intensity interferometers correlate photons within their coherence time and could overcome the baseline limitations of existing amplitude interferometers. Intensity interferometers do not rely on phase coherence of the optical…
Laser-plasma based experiments are always more demanding about the plasma features which need to be generated during the interaction. This is valid for laser-plasma acceleration as well as for inertial confinement fusion experiments. Most…
The paper describes a method for measuring the thermal diffusivity of materials having a high thermal conductivity. The apparatus is rather simple and low-cost, being therefore suitable in a laboratory for undergraduate students of…
Over the past few years questions have been raised concerning the use of laser communications links between sciencecraft to transmit phase information crucial to the reduction of laser frequency noise in the LISA science measurement. The…
Interferometers play a crucial role in high-precision displacement measurement such as gravitational-wave detection. Conventional interferometer designs require accurate laser alignment, including the laser pointing and the waist position,…