AO resources

Applied Optics Group Resources

This is a list of resources for use within the Applied Optics Group. This can include:

• Internal facilities
• Equipment and instruments (bought on shared funding e.g. SRIF)
• Local expertise
• External facilities (that members of the Applied Optics Group use)

Some of the facilities are "home-built" experiments - cutting edge facilities that may not be available anywhere else in the world, but on the other hand may be tied up/uncalibrated/moth-balled. Others are commercial.

I (Steve) will make a start on this of the things I know about, and some of the things I vaguely know about. Please correct errors and omissions.

Internal Facilities

Fab Lab

Description needs completing

Facility for evaporating coatings onto substrates.... please finish off the details, someone.

• Location: SiOS Labs
• Contact: Matt Clark or Teti Stratoudaki

Soldering and minor metalworking

Pillar drill (fairly crap), small bench vice, hand files, hacksaw, clamps etc.

Temperature-controlled soldering iron

Various PSUs, signal generators and scopes - all old

Stock components (resistors, fuses, cables, wire, plugs/sockets/connectors etc)

• Location: Tower 201 (Applied Optics Main Lab)
• Contact: Steve Sharples (for missing bits of equipment)
• Extra info:
  • Make sure you know what you're doing and how to operate the drill. Seek instruction if you're unsure. Don't take risks. Wear safety goggles (should be some nearby). Set the drill speed appropriately. Unplug the drill from the wall when moving the belt between pulleys. Clamp things down when drilling them (use the brush not your hands).
  • Tidy up after yourself - especially bits of metal after drilling.
  • Replace what you use: solder, solder wick, wire, stock components, anything.
  • If you see some old equipment and notice the electrical testing label has expired, get it PAT tested in the stores - it only takes a few minutes.
  • Switch everything off at the plug after you've used it - especially important for the soldering iron.

O-SAM

Description needs completing

• SRAS: surface microstructure imaging, using surface acoustic wave (SAW) velocity as contrast mechanism
• Coating thickness measurement (again using SAW velocity)
• Surface defect detection (cracks, delamination)

• Location: Tower 303 and 306 (Laser Ultrasound Labs)
• Contact: Steve Sharples (for missing bits of equipment)
• Extra info:

Scanning tank

• Ultrasonic scanning tank
• 6-axis
• 2 axes may be scanned simultaneously
• Panametrics 35MHz pulser-receiver
• Range of focused and plane beam transducers
• Agilent DSO8010A oscilloscope for acquisition
• Uses c_scan running under Linux for control and acquisition

• Location: Tower 201 (Applied Optics Main Lab)
• Contact: Steve Sharples
• Extra info:

Equipment and Instruments

Posh Microscope

Description needs completing

Can't remember if this is a Zeiss or Olympus. PC-controlled, with eye-pieces and CCD camera. Can reportedly stitch several images together. Illuminate from above and below. Lots of fancy stuff...

• Location: iBIOS Labs, somewhere.
• Contact: Shugang Liu? Mark Pitter? Don't know.
• Extra info:

Old Olympus Microscope

Olympus optical microscope, fairly old, but quite good. Optical only - although has a port for attaching a camera, think it's some sort of old Olympus manual SLR fitting. Manual focus and x-y. Illuminates top and bottom, has some ND filters, facilities for phase contrast etc.

• Location: Tower 201 (Applied Optics Main Lab)
• Contact: No-one really. Turn up and use it. If it's faulty, ask around or get it fixed yourself.
• Extra info:
  • There are 2 plugs. One powers the lower lamp, the other the top lamp. Top lamp is controlled by the external box that sits next to the microscope (switch on the side, use the knob to control brightness).
  • Switch the plugs off at the wall after use.
  • Put the eye-piece covers back on, and (after the microscope has cooled down) replace the dust cover.

Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)

Description needs completing

• Location: iBIOS Labs, somewhere
• Contact: Shugang Liu
• Extra info:

Polytec Laser Vibrometer

Polytec single-point vibrometer comprising:

1. OFV-5000 Modular Vibrometer Controller
2. OFV-534 Compact Sensor Head
3. VD-02 velocity decoder (DC-1.5MHz)
4. DD-300 displacement decoder (50kHz-24MHz)

• Total range <1Hz - 24MHz
• Calibrated output (convert volts to actual displacement)
• Internal CCD camera so you can see what you're scanning

• Location: usually 201 on the scanning tank, sometimes SiOS
• Contact: Steve Sharples
• Extra info:
  • Includes a couple of Mitutoyo objectives (x10 and x20) for very small spot size (useful for MEMs etc)
  • Includes a 15" flat screen TV for the internal CCD camera
  • Laser is class 2 (He:Ne) <1mW but don't look into the beam and follow all the usual precautions

Agilent 4GHz Oscilloscope

Agilent Infiniium 80404B Oscilloscope

• 4 channels
• 4GHz analogue bandwidth
• 40/20GSa/s (2/4 ch)
• Extra waveform memory (2Mpts)
• 50 Ohm inputs; 2 adapters available to convert 2 inputs to 1M Ohm.
• Matlab module

• Location: Usually one of the Laser Ultrasound Labs (303-307)
• Contact: Steve Sharples or whoever's lab it's in
• Extra info:
  • Sensitive inputs: they may look like regular BNCs, but if you start shoving 10V into them you're going to end up with a very large repair bill and will probably get a bollocking. Maximum voltage is written on the scopes. Use the 1M Ohm adapters if you need to look at bigger voltages (or have a high input impedance) but even with these the range of voltages that it can cope with is limited.
  • There is a Matlab module installed - I've never used it, but it might be useful
  • Grabbing data:
    • Windows: see the Agilent web site I guess
    • Linux: see this wiki page about installing agetwf (or install c_scan for more complex acquisition)

Tektronix MSO4034 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope

Tektronix MSO4034 mixed signal oscilloscope

• 4 analogue channels
• 16 digital channels
• 350MHz analogue bandwidth
• 2.5GSa/s
• 10Mpts waveform memory

• Location: Tower 201 (Applied Optics Main Lab)
• Contact: Steve Sharples
• Extra info:
  • This has lots of bit with it, for the digital inputs, in addition to the usual manuals, installation CDs etc. Keep them all in the supplied bag and don't lose them
  • Grabbing data:
    • Windows: see the Tek web site I guess, or the installation CD
    • Linux: see this wiki page about installing tgetwf (or install c_scan for more complex acquisition)

Laser Beam Profiler

Newport LBP-2-USB laser beam profiler

• Location: Tower 201
• Contact: Steve Sharples or Richard Smith
• Extra info:
  • Runs under Windows XP
  • Installation:
    • Install software first
    • Plug profiler into USB dongle
    • Plug PSU brick into USB dongle
    • Plug PSU brick into AC adapter (has US plug) and turn on mains
    • Plug USB dongle into PC

Optical (Thermal) Power Meter

Gentec XLP-12 Thermopile-based optical power meter

• Location: usually Laser Ultrasound Labs (303-307). Possibly 201.
• Contact: Steve Sharples or whoever's experiment it's sat on
• Extra info:
  • Sensitivity ~1mW to ~2W
  • Works fine with mode-locked (e.g. femtosecond), Q-switched (Nd:YAG) and CW lasers (long time constant)

High Frequency Lock-in Amplifier

SR844 high frequency lock-in amplifier

• 25 kHz to 200 MHz frequency range
• 80 dB dynamic reserve
• Time constants from 100 µs to 30 ks (6, 12, 18 or 24 dB/oct rolloff)
• "No Time Constant" mode (10 to 20 µs update rate)
• Auto-gain, -phase, -reserve and -offset
• Internal or external reference
• Two 16-bit DACs and ADCs
• GPIB and RS-232 interfaces

• Location: currently unknown. Richard Smith had it for a while
• Contact: Richard Smith, or whoever borrowed it afterwards
• Extra info:

Ultrasonic Pulser-Receiver

Olympus (formerly Panametrics) 5072PR Ultrasonic Pulser-Receiver

Description needs completing

• 35MHz bandwidth
• Spike excitation

• Location: unknown
• Contact: Melissa Mathers?
• Extra info:

Local Expertise

This section to be filled in another day.

External Facilities

Medical School workshop

Talk to Ian Stockford or Matt Clark

Physics fabrication and coating facilities

Talk to Teti Stratoudaki, someone else is trained up too, don't know who