Pizza Lunch Meeting

Wednesday, July 17, 2013


Attended by: LTC students and mentors, undergraduate and graduate students in Prof. Metcalf’s group, and an undergraduate from Prof. Schneble’s group

Presentation by Laser Sam

Sam Goldwasser, Laser Guru
Sam gave a general overview on lasers - including descriptions of various types, longitudinal modes in HeNe lasers, and the use of a scanning Fabry-Pérot interferometer.

Research updates from the LTC group:

Casey McKenna, Stony Brook University ‘16
Casey described the Zeeman effect, Fabry-Pérot interferometry, and some of the progress he’s made with Sam in the lab.

Rachel Sampson, Stony Brook University ‘16
Rachel explained the research she’s done on diffraction, including her observations of “A” aperture diffraction patterns and reconstructing an object using its far-field diffraction without a lens.

Samantha Scibelli, Burnt Hills–Ballston Lake High School ‘13
Samantha presented her research interest in caustics and its uses to measure distance, liquid crystals, and diffraction gratings.

Kevin Zheng, Wayzata High School (Plymouth, MN) ‘14
Kevin gave an overview of his experiences in the Blank ultrafast lab, focusing mainly on the Ti:Sapphire lase, modelocking, and chirped pulse amplification.

Stefan Evans, Stony Brook University ‘14
Stefan reviewed the work that he’s been doing with Laguerre-Gaussian beams, as far as observing the effects of obstructing parts of an optical vortex.

William Meehan, East Islip High School ‘14
William described his interest and research into Fresnel lenses and reflectors, maximum power point tracking (MPPT), nonimaging optics, and stress-induced birefringence.

Kathy Camenzind, California High School (San Ramon, CA) ‘14
Kathy gave some background on how optical tweezers work, described her progress recreating Hamsa’s setup, and explained her interest in quantifying the strength of the optical trap.

Melia Bonomo, Dickinson College ‘13
Melia announced the LTC’s purchase of two spatial light modulators and a collimated laser module from Cambridge correlators, and she explained an article that looked to optimize the shallow phase depth of these low cost SLMs.