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Prof. Alejandro Garcia (agarcia3@uw.edu) |
Lectures T-Th 7:00-8:50 PAA: A114 |
Welcome to PHYS 530 (Spring 2023). This is a course on the physics of lasers for students in our evening MS program. I hope you will enjoy learning some of the basics behind the workings with lasers. We will follow the book Laser Physics by Melonni & Eberly, covering up to chapter 6. The idea is to equip you with an intro that allows you to go deeper into particular subjects you may be interested in later by yourself.
Here is the the schedule. Readings for each lecture are noted in parenthesis: ME stands for Milonni-Eberly. See below about the other textbooks.
| Week1 | 03/28: Basics of E&M and QM (ME: Ch. 1) |
03/30: Atoms, Molecules, and Solids (ME: Ch. 2) |
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| Week2 | 04/04: Fabry-Perot Theory (Hecht: Ch. 9) |
04/06: |
04/08: |
| Week3 |
04/11: |
04/13: |
04/15: |
| Week4 | 04/18: Absorption, Emission, and Dispersion of Light IV (ME: 3.11-3.15) |
04/20: |
04/22: |
| Week5 | 04/25: Laser Oscillation: Gain and Threshold II (ME: 4.5-4.8) |
04/27: |
04/29: |
| Week6 | 05/02: Midterm Review |
05/04: |
05/06: |
| Week7 | 05/09: The Hydrogen Atom (Foot: Ch. 2) |
05/11: |
05/14: |
| Week8 | 05/16: Lamb-shift Experiment, group I (Lamb-shift Exp. guide) MEET directly in PAB room 260. NO LECTURE. Garcia with group I. |
05/18: |
05/21: |
| Week9 |
05/23: NO LECTURE. group II meet directly at Room PAB260. |
05/25: |
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| Week10 | 05/30: Presentations: Group I and II |
06/01: |
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Readings
The syllabus indicates what students are expected to read before lectures. Students should have a first look at the material in advance so that in lecture concepts are reviewed and discussed further. To encourage this, some class quizzes (clickers) will concern the material from the readings.
Texts
- Laser Physics by Milonni and Eberly (John Wiley & Sons, 2010)
- Optics by Hecht (Ch. 9 only)
- Atomic Physics by Foot (Ch. 2 and 8 only)
Homework
There will be weekly homework sets up to Week8, after which I expect students to be busy preparing their Presentations/Paper. It is helpful to find a group of other students to check on the solutions and discuss answers.
Mathematica
My lectures and hw assignments will assume students can use Mathematica. Students can install Mathematica on their personally owned computers at no cost. Brief instructions on getting started with Mathematica are here.
Lab sessions --(In presence, if you can, otherwise watch Videos)
- Fabry-Perot.
- Lamb shift.
Exams
There will be one midterm.
Presentations/Paper
By the 4th week of classes, students will have chosen one of the topics for presentations. Students will work on groups to make presentations during the last week of classes, and to produce a paper.
Course grade
The course grade will be determined by combining the results on the midterm, hw, presentation and paper with the following relative weights:
| HW | 25% |
| clickers | 5% |
| midterm | 25% |
| final presentation | 20% |
| final paper | 25% |
Combining the components as just described yields a "total score". If your total score is 50% you will obtain at least a 2.0 in this class.