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6.1: Pre-lab Exercises

  • Page ID
    47375
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    Solid-State and Gas Lasers

    The Pre-Lab Exercises must be completed BEFORE entering the Lab. In your lab notebook record data, explain phenomena you observe, and answer the questions asked. Remember to answer all questions in your lab notebook in a neat and orderly fashion. No data are to be taken on these laboratory sheets. Tables provided herein are simply examples of how to record data into your laboratory notebooks. Expect the in-lab portion of this exercise to take about 3 hours.

    PL 6.1 – Get Prepared to Start the Laboratory Exercises

    Read the entire laboratory handout, and be prepared to answer questions before, during and after the lab session. Determine all the equations and constants that may be needed in order to perform all the laboratory exercises. Write them all down in your laboratory notebook before entering the Lab. This will ensure that you take all necessary data while in the Lab in order to complete the lab write-up. This preparatory work will also count toward your Lab Exercise grade.

    PL 6.2

    Design a lens system that would convert the beam from a typical diode laser to a circular shape as is done in laser pointers. Remember that diode lasers typically have an emission area with a rectangular cross section. The beam exiting a laser diode can be described by two spatially independent Gaussians (in x and y). The total beam is the result of the multiplication of these two Gaussians. One Gaussian will have much greater divergence than the other (so the intensity pattern will look like an oval, instead of a circle).

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    This page titled 6.1: Pre-lab Exercises is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by David Dunmeyer (MIT OpenCourseWare) .

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