Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Fall 2009/Spring 2010

  Two of our seniors, Elyse McEntee and CJ Koll, were working on my project as part of their senior capstone project (this year for the last time only one semester long).

  Elyse's focus were the PI controllers for the laser system. She built several circuits which could be connected in a modular way to allow a high degree of flexibility and adjust the whole circuit easily for many different purposes.
Elyse also wrote two LabView programs that read in signals from the circuits and from our vacuum gauge.

  CJ began calculations on a frequency doubling cavity which will be used to trap the alkaline-earth atom.

  My lab also got an upgrade: A brand new (and heavy!) optical table.