Laser Physics Laboratory 1

The task is to fix in the students the knowledge of the laser theory basics and the capability to design, build and test a solid state laser operating in the three, continuous, Q-switched and mode locked, regimes. The course is methodologically structured with a strict connection between the class lecture on a physics topic and a laboratory work relevant for that topic.

The list of the arguments :

1) Lecture: introduction to lasers, Lab: Optics elements of a cavity and their alignement;

2) Lecture: radiation-matter interaction and laser rate equations,
Lab: a Nd:YAG laser assembling and output power versus diode pumping power measurement;

3) Lecture: Spatial and temporal modes of an optical cavity, Lab: Project of a Nd:YAG laser operating in temporal and spatial multimode configuration and
(a) their characterization via a beam profiler, (b) analysis of the temporal cavity modes via the beat technique and a spectrometer;

4) Lecture: the physics of the Q-Switch for the generation of laser high energy pulses, Lab: project and realization of a Nd:YAG laser operating in Q-Switch mode and the realtive tests;

5) Lecture: the physics of the laser with mode-locker for the generation of ultrasort laser pulses, Lab: project and realization of a Nd:YAG laser operating in the mode-locking regime and the relative tests;

6) Lecture: non-linear interaction in Optics and the autocorrelator theory,
Lab: project and assembling of an autocorrelator for the measurement of the mode-locked Nd:YAG pulses length.