Video Demonstrations in Lasers and Optics

Demonstrations in laser fundamentals

VIDEOS	DESCRIPTIONS
II. Demonstrations in laser fundamentals
Laser fundamentals I
Simple laser	Introduction to lasers Demonstration of a simple laser with internal mirrors Demonstration of a laser with external mirrors, showing the effect of cavity misalignment
Light amplifier	Demonstration of light amplification by an optical amplifier, using a He-Ne laser and a He-Ne amplifier tube Demonstration of 6% amplification per pass Calibration of detector using a fixed loss Measurement of the effect of amplifier fluorescence on detector output
Polarization of laser light	Demonstration of the state of polarization of a laser with external mirrors and the amplifier terminated with Brewster windows Demonstration of the state of polarization of a laser with internal mirrors
Spectrum of laser light	Demonstration of the spectrum of laser light from a He-Ne laser with external mirrors showing multiple frequencies associated with longitudinal modes of the cavity Demonstration of the polarization of the multiple frequencies being identical Demonstration of the effect of temperature, vibration, and misalignment of the spectrum of the laser output Demonstration of the spectrum of laser light from a He-Ne laser with internal mirrors, showing multiple frequencies associated with longitudinal modes of the cavity Demonstration of the polarization of the multiple frequencies from an internal mirror laser showing that adjacent modes are orthogonally polarized Demonstration of single-frequency output by polarization selection Demonstration of the effect of temperature on the spectrum of the laser output
Light inside and light outside laser	Demonstration of light inside laser cavity being much stronger than light leaving the laser Discussion of cavity dumping
Laser fundamentals II
Optics of laser beams	Demonstration of an expanding beam from a laser Demonstration of spatial filtering of a laser beam Demonstration of laser-generated speckle patterns on screen Visualization of laser beam propagating in a water tank Visualization of focused laser beam in a water tank Observation of the Rayleigh range
Laser transverse modes	Demonstration of various transverse modes from a laser as a function of cavity alignment Demonstration of the use of an intra-cavity adjustable aperture to control the number of transverse modes that can oscillate Demonstration of the frequency spectrum of laser transverse modes Demonstration of a method of isolating single transverse modes using a wire inside the laser cavity Demonstration of the spectrum of isolated transverse modes Demonstration of the change in orientation of a transverse mode Demonstration of the effect of blocking one of the lobes of a two-lobe mode inside the laser cavity Demonstration of the effect of blocking one of the lobes of a two-lobe mode outside the laser cavity
Laser linewidth	Discussion of laser linewidth Measurement of laser linewidth using an optical spectrum analyzer Measurement of the fundamental laser linewidth using a two-frequency laser showing the intrinsic spectral width to be much less than 30 Hz
Laser fundamentals III
Reflection back into laser	Demonstration of the intensity and spectrum of a single-frequency laser and a multifrequency laser Demonstration of the effect of back reflection into the laser on the intensity and the spectrum of each laser
High power argon laser	Demonstration of the operation on an argon ion laser Demonstration of the high intensity in the argon laser beam by burning a hole in cardboard with an unfocused laser beam
Multi-wavelength argon laser	Demonstration of the operation of an argon ion laser Demonstration of simultaneous multiwavelength operation of an argon laser in the blue-green spectral range
Single frequency argon laser	Demonstration of the operation of an argon ion laser Demonstration of the broad spectrum from an argon laser using an optical spectrum analyzer Demonstration of single-frequency operation using an intracavity etalon Demonstration of the effect of etalon tuning on the single-frequency output of the laser showing mode hopping phenomena Demonstration of the effect of aligning the intracavity etalon normal to the laser beam showing chaotic amplitude and frequency behavior
Tunable dye laser	Demonstration of the operation of a cw dye laser pumped by an argon laser Demonstration of the wide tuning capability of the dye laser from green to yellow to red
Dye laser excitation of sodium	Demonstration of the excitation of atomic sodium in a heated cell by a tunable dye laser Observation of intense radiation from the sodium vapor when the laser is on resonance with a ground state transition in sodium
Dye laser induced fluorescence in iodine	Demonstration of fluorescence induced by a tunable dye laser in a cell of molecular iodine Simultaneous display of the color of the dye laser and the color of the iodine fluorescence as a function of laser tuning showing large differences in color under certain conditions