There’s been an interesting discussion on the Confocal listserv, and we’ll quote some of that discussion below. We’ve always used protected gold and silver mirrors for our multiphoton systems. That’s still what we recommend…
Fast laser power modulation in 2p systems is typically done with a Pockels cell. Conoptics sells one that is optimized for common Ti:Sapph systems, and that’s what many people end up using.
Pockels cells are…
Reminder: green laser pointers have a ton of IR in them. It needs to be filtered out if you don’t want it. See this old (2011!) Labrigger post.
The recent post on ripple noise generated some comments and additional discussion. Go check out the comments on that post. For example, Peter Rupprecht shared some snapshots an oscilloscope display showing the signal from…
Many lasers have baseplates with channels through which chilled water is pumped to dissipate heat and stabilize the temperature of the system. I haven’t had much trouble with the chillers and baseplates of Newport/Spectra-Physics systems….
From Benjamin Judkewitz:
I needed an IR viewer to see a Ti:S beam and was really surprised to find that most viewers still sell for > 1000 € (or $). Visualizing NIR used to be really…
When you run out of catalogs to read, Photonics has some nice short articles. It’s all pretty basic, not too complicated. Good for training (e.g., Optical design software, Fiber lasers)
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Ultrafast pulses are formed through interference of different wavelengths of light. Think of Fourier transforms, and how pulses can be generated through constructive and destructive interference of wavelengths with aligned phases. These wavelengths are close to the center wavelength, and spread over a wavelength…
A friend just asked a quick question: How can I make a bunch of cheap (not fast) laser shutters? Here’s a quick answer: For motors, servos are pretty easy to use. Put a piece of…
Recently, a moderately expensive optical element got fried at Labrigger. During the postmortem, we revisited our power and energy calculations, and our LIDT (laser intensity damage threshold) calculations.
LIDT calculations remind me of radiation-health physics…
Wicked Lasers makes laser pointers. High quality, high power laser pointers that can be repurposed for other applications. In fact, some of their lasers should probably never be used as pointers (e.g., this 2 watt…
Autocorrelators can be used to measure the pulse width of ultrafast lasers. This can be useful for troubleshooting dispersion in your 2-photon imaging system and generally troubleshooting laser issues. They are big ticket items and often…
In a previous post, we discussed how peak power is computed. Although Ti:Sapph laser manufacturers typically quote the average power, peak power is the more relevant quantity for two photon excitation. Here’s a graph showing…
If you’re like most people, you can get the vast majority of your holiday shopping done at Edmund Optics. They’re having a Cyber Monday sale this Monday, November 26th. Use code Cyber12 at checkout.
Here’s the…
