Work
What I did today:
Today, the graduate student I am working with returned from Troyes with new samples. Our goal was to test the Transmittance and Reflectance of these new samples in order to see if he was successful and achieved the desired optical properties. He is set to go back to Troyes in a week to make more samples, so he wanted to assess his progress.
As mentioned in prior blog entries, the laser has been having problems, not only with power and dispersion but with alignment as well. The alignment changes depending on the pulse picker value we give it, which should not be the case. Not only this, but the temperature in the lab continues to fluctuate due to air conditioning problems in the lab.
Despite these obstacles, we proceeded to collect preliminary data, mindful that our goal at this stage is a rough estimate. We devoted significant time to realigning the laser path, yet the dispersion and lack of power, meant that the sapphire crystal was not receiving enough intense light to produce white light.
We then experimented with an alternative pulse-picker setting, which produced a noticeably more intense beam. However, this adjustment required us to realign the entire setup from scratch. Although the new configuration did generate visible light (via the sapphire crystal), the light was unexpectedly more orange than it should be, suggesting that beam quality or dispersion remained suboptimal.
What I plan to do tomorrow:
We plan to look at the spectra of the visible light produced by the crystal.