Physics 7810 Section 1: Ultrafast Optics
Spring 2011

Class Location and Time:
Ultrafast Optics will not be taught Spring of 2011
For interested students, the special topics course offered by Prof. Markus Raschke will cover similar material.
If you are interested in taking this course in the future, please e-mail Steve Cundiff

Instructor:
Steven Cundiff
Contact Information:
Office: A500 JILA
E-mail: cundiff..at..jila.colorado.edu
Phone: 2-7858
Office hours: Wednesdays 2:00 - 3:00 or by appointment


Texts:

Required:
A.M. Weiner, "Ultrafast Optics", John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 978-0-471-41539-8

Recommended:
Diels and Rudolph “Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena, 2nd ed.” Academic Press, ISBN 978-0122154935

Draft chapters from book edited by Trebino and Squier

Trebino, "Frequency Resolved Optical Gating” Springer, ISBN 1402070667

Ye and Cundiff, "Femtosecond Optical Frequency Comb Technology" Springer, ISBN 0-387-23790-9


Topics:

Review of laser basics

Fundamentals
Description of pulse, temporal and spectral phase, chirp
Time-bandwidth product for various pulse shapes
Propagation
Nonlinearity
Numerical modeling of propagation


Optics and dispersion
Phase velocity, group velocity, GVD, GDD, units thereof
Dispersion of materials, glass, air…
Measurement of dispersion
Dispersion compensation (prisms, gratings, negative dispersion mirrors)

Sources
Modelocking (active, passive)
Saturable absorbers, types: real vs. effective
Time versus frequency domain descriptions, pulse trains (basics of combs)
Pulse propagation, “master” equation, dispersion management

Pulse shaping
Fourier
Space-to-time mapping

Diagnostics and measurement
Autocorrelation
FROG
SPIDER
Spectral interferometry

Amplification
Chirped pulse
Regenerative, multi-pass

Ultrafast Spectroscopy
Transient Absorption
Transient Grating
Coherent Phenomena: Optical Bloch Equations
Photon Echoes
Two-D
Faraday/Kerr rotation

Ultrafast Processes in Matter
Atoms
Molecules
Solids
Biological

High Harmonic/X-ray Generation
Carrier-envelope phase effects

THz generation
Time-domain THz spectroscopy
Imaging

Combs: absolute frequency metrology, optical atomic clocks


Date
Lecture
Homework
Tuesday Jan. 11, 2011
Organizational
Review of Laser Basics

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011


Tuesday, Jan 18, 2011


Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011


Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011


Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011


Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011


Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011


Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011


Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011


Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011


Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011
No Class

Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011


Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011


Tuesday, Mar. 1 2011


Thursday, Mar. 3, 2011


Tuesday, Mar. 8, 2011


Thursday, Mar. 10, 2011


Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2011


Thursday, Mar. 17, 2011


Tuesday, Mar. 22, 2011
No Class -- Spring Break

Thursday, Mar. 24, 2011
No Class -- Spring Breat

Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2011


Thursday, Mar. 31, 2011


Tuesday, Apr. 5, 2011
No Class (Tentative)

Thursday, Apr. 7, 2011


Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2011


Thursday, Apr. 14, 2011


Tuesday, Apr. 19, 2011


Thursday, Apr. 21, 2011


Tuesday, Apr. 26, 2011


Thursday, Apr. 28, 2011