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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Tunable Optical Delay In Doppler-Broadened Cesium Vapor, Monte D. Anderson Dec 2010

Tunable Optical Delay In Doppler-Broadened Cesium Vapor, Monte D. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

Variable-delay tunable optical delay line or optical buffers are critical for the development of all-optical networks components as well as interferometry and analytic instruments. Recent research on slow light may hold the key for the development of the first practical tunable optical delay device. In this research the linear dispersion delay effects in an alkali vapor. The hyperfine relaxation observations present insight into the complex bleach wave dynamics during a high-intensity pulsed pump in DPAL systems.


Laser Demonstration And Performance Characterization Of An Optically Pumped Alkali Laser System, Clifford V. Sulham Sep 2010

Laser Demonstration And Performance Characterization Of An Optically Pumped Alkali Laser System, Clifford V. Sulham

Theses and Dissertations

Diode Pumped Alkali Lasers (DPALs) offer a promising approach for high power lasers in military applications that will not suffer from the long logistical trails of chemical lasers or the thermal management issues of diode pumped solid state lasers. This research focuses on characterizing a DPAL-type system to gain a better understanding of using this type of laser as a directed energy weapon. A rubidium laser operating at 795 nm is optically pumped by a pulsed titanium sapphire laser to investigate the dynamics of DPALs at pump intensities between 1.3 and 45 kW/cm2. Linear scaling as high as …


Electronic Structure Of Lithium Tetraborate, David J. Wooten Jun 2010

Electronic Structure Of Lithium Tetraborate, David J. Wooten

Theses and Dissertations

Due to interest as neutron detection material, an investigation of Li2B4O7(110) and Li2B4O7(100) was undertaken, utilizing photoemission and inverse photoemission spectroscopic techniques. The measured band gap depended on crystallographic direction with the band gaps ranging from 8.9±0.5 eV to 10.1±0.5 eV. The measurement yielded a density of states that qualitatively agreed with the theoretical results from model bulk band structure calculations for Li2B4O7; albeit with a larger band gap than predicted, but consistent with the known deficiencies of LDA and DFT calculations. …


Optical And Electrical Characterization Of Bulk Grown Indium-Gallium-Arsenide Alloys, Austin C. Bergstrom Mar 2010

Optical And Electrical Characterization Of Bulk Grown Indium-Gallium-Arsenide Alloys, Austin C. Bergstrom

Theses and Dissertations

Advances in crystal growth techniques have allowed increased quality in growth of bulk ternary InxGa1-xAs. Here, the optical and electrical properties of samples grown through the vertical Bridgman (or multi-component zone melting growth) method have been investigated through photoluminescence spectroscopy and Hall effect measurements. Indium mole fractions varied from 0.75 for 1. Hall effect measurements at temperatures ranging from 10 to 300 K revealed moderate n-type doping with carrier concentrations ranging from 1.5 to 9.6×1016 cm-3 at 10 to 15 K. Carriers from deep donor levels became appreciable between 50 and 100 K. Hall …


Rubidium Recycling In A High Intensity Short Duration Pulsed Alkali Laser, Wooddy S. Miller Mar 2010

Rubidium Recycling In A High Intensity Short Duration Pulsed Alkali Laser, Wooddy S. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Laser induced fluorescence was used to study how pump pulse duration and alkali recycle time effects maximum power output in a Diode Pumped Alkali Laser (DPAL) system. A high intensity short pulsed pump source was used to excited rubidium atoms inside a DPAL-type laser. The maximum output power of the laser showed a strong dependence upon the temporal width of the pump pulse in addition to the input pump intensity. A linear relationship was observed between the maximum output power and the pulse width due to the effective lifetime of the excited state, defined as the time it takes for …


Monocular Passive Ranging By An Optical System With Band Pass Filtering, Joel R. Anderson Mar 2010

Monocular Passive Ranging By An Optical System With Band Pass Filtering, Joel R. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

An instrument for monocular passive ranging based on atmospheric oxygen absorption near 762 nm has been designed, built and deployed to track emissive targets, including the plumes from jet engines or rockets. An intensified CCD array is coupled to variable band pass liquid crystal display filter and 3.5 – 8.8 degree field of view optics to observe the target. By recording sequential images at 7 Hz in three 6 nm width bands, the transmittance of the R-branch of the O2 (X-b) (0,0) band is determined. A metric curve for determining range from transmittance is developed using the HITRAN spectral …


Numerical Investigation Of Statistical Turbulence Effects On Beam Propagation Through 2-D Shear Mixing Layer, James C. Bowers Mar 2010

Numerical Investigation Of Statistical Turbulence Effects On Beam Propagation Through 2-D Shear Mixing Layer, James C. Bowers

Theses and Dissertations

A methodology is developed for determining the validity of making a statistical turbulent approach using Kolmogorov theory to an aero-optical turbulent ow. Kolmogorov theory provides a stochastic method that has a greatly simplified and robust method for calculating atmospheric turbulence effects on optical beam propagation, which could simplify similar approaches to chaotic aero-optical flows. A 2-D laminar Navier-Stokes CFD Solver (AVUS) is run over a splitter plate type geometry to create an aero-optical like shear mixing layer turbulence field. A Matlab algorithm is developed to import the flow data and calculates the structure functions, structure constant, and Fried Parameter ( …


Afm-Patterned 2-D Thin-Film Photonic Crystal Analyzed By Complete Angle Scatter, Nicholas C. Herr Mar 2010

Afm-Patterned 2-D Thin-Film Photonic Crystal Analyzed By Complete Angle Scatter, Nicholas C. Herr

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to use an atomic force microscope (AFM) to generate a 2-D square array of sub-wavelength surface features from a single material over a region large enough to permit optical characterization. This work is an extension of previous AFIT nano-patterning work and is in response to the small subunit sizes demanded for the production of optical metamaterials and photonic crystals. A diamond nano-indentation AFM probe was used to produce a 325-μm by 200-μm array of indentations in a 120-nm thick polystyrene film deposited on silicon. Indentation spacing of 400 nm produced well-defined surface features with …


Thermal Neutron Point Source Imaging Using A Rotating Modulation Collimator (Rmc), Nathan O. Boyce Mar 2010

Thermal Neutron Point Source Imaging Using A Rotating Modulation Collimator (Rmc), Nathan O. Boyce

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis demonstrates a previously untested capability of the Rotating Modulation Collimator (RMC) to image a point-like neutron source. The encouraging results, achieved using low-energy neutrons, provide motivation for further refinement and continued research with higher-energy neutrons. The detector and the masks on an existing RMC imaging system were exchanged to function with neutrons. The source in this research produced a poly-energetic spectrum of neutrons through the reaction. The source of alpha particles was a 72.7 mCi 239Pu source. The RMC detector was located 250 cm from the bare source and operated for three hours to generate a modulation …


Digital Delay Device, Guna Seetharaman, Paul E. Kladitis Mar 2010

Digital Delay Device, Guna Seetharaman, Paul E. Kladitis

AFIT Patents

A digitally controlled optical delay apparatus providing optical signal delays electrically selectable in the picosecond to nanosecond range by way of selectable signal path lengths. Path lengths are incremented in physical length and path delay time according to digital ratios. The delay element includes micro-miniature path changing mirrors controlled in path length selecting positioning by input signals of logic level magnitude. Fiber optic coupling of signals to and from the delay element and a combination of fixed position and movable mirror included optical signal path lengths are included.