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.
|