2018-2019 Colloquium Lecture Series Archive

Substrate-transferred crystalline coatings are a groundbreaking new concept in optical interference coatings. Building upon fundamental research in optomechanical resonators, these “semiconductor supermirrors” were first demonstrated in 2013, with the key advantage being the ability...

Dr. Novak will present an overview of several of the techniques currently employed in industry for single frame (snapshot) measurement of various surface properties including stress, surface shape and roughness on both specular and diffuse materials, covering lateral scales from micrometers to...

Although for millennia the development of optical science and engineering has been intimately interconnected with the human eye, over the last few decades light has been increasingly used to image and treat pathologies in many other tissues.  These recent medical developments and...

Coherent light enables length measurements of exquisite sensitivity that lie at the core of fascinating observations in fundamental and quantum physics, astrophysics, geodesy and measurement science in general.

Novel technologies and measurement principles find application in areas that...

Today's state-of-the-art atom inertial sensors require improvements in stability and accuracy in order to fully exploit their potential with large scale factors on very long baselines on ground and in space, as well as in dynamic environments, e.g. for inertial navigation. I will report on...

There can be a mismatch between optical design software and manufacturability of optical components. These mismatches can lead to optics impossible to manufacture – negative edge thickness anyone? Other mismatches may only have negative cost and time consequences. In this colloquia you...

The goal of generating short laser pulses down to the limit set by a single wave cycle of light has been pursued ever since the invention of lasers. Laser pulses consisted of only a small number of wave cycles allow more efficient exploitation of nonlinear optical effects with implications as...

Advances in our understanding of the Universe depend on improvements in sensitivity and angular resolution that can come only with larger telescopes. Telescope diameters increased by an order of magnitude in just over a century, but that growth has been sporadic, limited mainly by the ability to...

Semiconductor disk lasers (SDLs), also known as vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs), are ‘hybrid’ lasers that offer the wavelength flexibility of semiconductor bandgap engineering with the high brightness, low noise of more conventional solid-state lasers. They...