JPSA System Installed

Rob Excimer, Femtosecond µMachining, Lab Equipment, Lasers, Nanosecond, Nanosecond µMachining, Ultrashort, Uncategorized, µMachining
JPSA µ-Machining platform installed and
JPSA µ-Machining platform installed and aligned

The JPSA system has been installed and is ready to start cutting! Well I should say that the UV excimer system is ready. The femtosecond system is currently causing some headaches. Primarily, the femtosecond system’s set power (3.3 mJ) and high repition rate (1 kHz) are causing some headaches. We are looking in to ultra-fast variable attenuators from Altechna to address the set output power of the Legend system. The trick here is to lower the power with out streching the pulse. This makes conventaional laser power adjustment with ND filters or polarizers unseable. The Altechna system uses thin film polarizers in combination with half waveplates to minimize the pulse stretching while allowing continuous pulse attenuation.

JPSA System Arrives

Rob Excimer, Femtosecond µMachining, Lab Equipment, Lasers, Nanosecond, Nanosecond µMachining, Ultrashort, Uncategorized, µMachining
JPSA Inital System Placement
JPSA Inital System Placement

The inital placement of the JPSA µ-machining platform has been completed. With the arrival of the installation eningeers from JPSA and Coherent Scientific we can begin the final alignement of the Xantos Excimer laser (in the foreground on the labjack) and the Coherent Legend femtosecond laser beam paths. Just getting the system in the door proved to a challenge, but with the removal of a few (probably) insignificant handles we managed to JUST slip it in. We didn’t even need to remove the door frame (a speculation brought up serval times in the past. Thanks for the Peter!

First PF Transient Absorption Experiment Successful

Rob Transient Absorption, Uncategorized
dpbnhex2
First PF Transient Absorption Data

With the PF Legend and TOPAS laser systems installed, we have recently demonstrated our first femtosecond transient absorption experiment. Above is shown the decay of the first excited state of Diphenyl-Butadiene in n-Hexanes, after excitation with a 350nm, ~100fs, pump pulse. For more information, go to the Transient Absorption Spectroscopy pages.

New Optical Tables Installed

Rob Lab Equipment, Uncategorized

It is truly getting crowded on the factory floor in the Photon Factory. Our new set of optical tables has arrived and are ready to be lifted into place. They are currently in the lab (quite a feat of Kiwi can do attitude. Thanks Steve et al! ) and taking up a lot of space. Soon we will be able to add more capabilities to our lab, including additional nanosecond lasers and another complete amplified laser system. At the moment the tables make for very cool, and hard, beds.p1010028p1010027

The Open Market Prevails

Rob Uncategorized

It’s fresh completition at the U of A. The boys over in  Ye Ol’ Machine Shoppe have heard of the wonders of our laser cutting expliots, and have decided to join the club. The University of Auckland machine shop has recently aquired a new laser cutter. While the VersaLaser  50 Watt cutting system, does not have as much output power as our 100 Watt Bassel LaserStar system, we anticipate that its large working platform will make it a much more useful general purpose tool!

JPSA µ-Machining Platform Ready to Ship

Rob Lab Equipment, Uncategorized
Eximer laser cut UA Logo. Minium feature size (line width) is ~ 2 µm.
Excimer laser cut UA Logo in a Chrome thin film on glass.

This last week, Dr. Bryon Wright and I traveled to Manchester, New Hampshire, USA, to evaluate our new laser µ-Machining station. After a week of system demonstration and training, we’ve happily accepted the new system, and expect delivery by the end of June. While we were testing the system, we demonstrated a minum direct write feature size of ~ 2 µm. For fun we used the system’s excimer laser (λ = 248nm) to inscribe the UA logo in a thin film of chrome. The complete logo is ~ 0.5 mm in width. For some more initial test results you can look at the UA micro-machining website as well.

Coherent Legend System Installed

Rob Lab Equipment, Uncategorized
Coherent Legened Elite amplified laser system
Coherent Legened Elite amplified laser system

Today we successfully completed the installation of the Coherent Legened Elite Amplified Laser System. We are now producing 100 fs pulses with 4.0mJ of energy per pulse, and 35 fs pulses, each at 3.8 mJ. This clears the way for the additional installations of the remaining hardware for the photon factory. This will include, the JPSA integrated micromachining platform, and two TOPAS optical amplifiers.  These installations are projected to take place in April and May of this year.