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"Lasers and nonlinear optics" practical course laboratory
Il'ya Vladimirovich Golovnin
Director of practical courses,
Senior Lecturer
Room: 209
Phone: 095/939 1980 |
This practical course laboratory is a modern laboratory for student practical
training and improving qualifications of researchers (including those from abroad)
specialized in quantum electronics, laser physics and nonlinear optics. This
laboratory serves to train students of the Physics Department of Moscow State
University and attendees of ILC graduate courses, as well as to improve the
qualification and to provide additional training of experts in medicine, biology,
and chemistry, who deal with laser and nonlinear-optical methods and instruments
in their research and practice. Seven laser setups available at this laboratory
allow the experimental training to be provided along the following directions:
Lasing kinetics of a neodymium garnet laser. This includes an introduction
to operation principles, the main elements and the design of a solid-state laser
using a neodymium-doped aluminum yttrium garnet crystal, operating in two regimes
- free-running lasing and Q switching.

Generation and characterization of ultrashort light pulses. This gives an insight into the operation of a solid-state laser using a neodymium-doped
aluminum yttrium garnet crystal with double acousto-optical Q switching, operating
in different regimes of lasing, as well as into the correlation technique of
measuring the duration of ultrashort light pulses with the use of an optical
correlator.
Generation of optical harmonics. Generation of the second
optical harmonic, sum-frequency generation, and cascade frequency multiplication
of radiation produced by a pulsed solid-state laser using a neodymium-doped
aluminum yttrium garnet crystal are experimentally studied.

Optical parametric oscillator (OPO). This gives an introduction
to one of the basic phenomena of nonlinear optics - optical parametric oscillation,
which allows coherent radiation smoothly tunable within a broad spectral range
to be produced. The tuning curve and the lasing threshold of a lithium niobate
OPO are measured.

CARS spectrometer. This setup allows a student to perform
a modern automated scientific experiment in four-wave mixing spectroscopy of
gases.
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Modulation of optical radiation. This gives an introduction
to the principles of modulation of optical radiation and the operation of optical
modulators of two types - electro-optical and acousto-optical ones.

Holography. Holograms of real objects are recorded with
subsequent reconstruction and observation of the recorded image.

Practical training includes the alignment of separate optical elements and of
the entire optical system as a whole, adjustment and the choice of the operation
mode, understanding of the procedure of measurements and processing the results
of measurements. An introduction to the main principles of the data equisation
and control of laser experiments is also given.
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