I am a third-year physics undergraduate student in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto.
With: QiLin Xue
Supervised by: Prof. Boris Braverman
We develop a retrofittable motorized attachment for optical mirror mounts, enabling absolute tip/tilt positioning via encoder feedback. Optical validation has shown that we are able to measure mechanical effects such as hysteresis when performing bi-directional movements. The ultimate goal is to improve the robustness of optical setups that rely on free-space alignment. The electronics used for this project may be familiar to those who have experience tinkering with 3D printers and those who've worked with electromechanical systems employing field oriented control.
With: Nicholas Sullivan
Supervised by: Prof. Boris Braverman
This project studies generalized spatial filters for optical mode cleaning. While single-mode fibers can efficiently attenuate higher-order spatial modes, they are not always suitable for high-power beams, incompatible wavelengths, higher-order target modes and a controlled mixture of modes.
The goal of the project is to design and test spatial filters that maximize transmission of a desired optical mode while suppressing unwanted modes.
My work during the summer term focused on the experimental reconstruction pipeline. I use off-axis digital holography to recover the amplitude and phase of light passing through the spatial filter, then numerically back-propagate the reconstructed optical field to the beam waist near the Rayleigh range (z=0), allowing us to perform beam normalization and decompose into the Hermite-Gaussian basis.
At times I become a little distracted, and change the scope of the lab work handed in the experimental physics courses. Despite the added work and uncertainty the times I've gotten off track has been some of the best experiences I've had in undergrad to date.
Course: PHY324
For PHY324's pendulum project. I wanted to understand how to better use the skills I've previously acquired when building RC airplanes and mechatronic devices to the physics experiments I perform. I designed and built a custom physical pendulum apparatus using 3D-printed parts, and custom electronics, using a magnetic encoder to achieve a 12-bit resolution in angle readings. (I really wanted to use an optical encoder initially, however the construction of the circuit was not well thought out).
This was more elaborate than the minimum required setup, but it let me explore mechanical design, embedded electronics, serial data acquisition, and Python-based analysis. While the physics of the system remained quite familiar to me, as many things can be thought of as a simple harmonic oscillator, (albeit there is damping and non-linear effects).
Course: PHY424
This will be written shortly. :)))