No Arabic abstract
We describe a compact and stable setup for detecting the optical second harmonics, in which the incident plane rotates with respect to the sample. The setup is composed of rotating Fresnel-rhomb optics and a femtosecond ytterbium-doped fiber-laser source operating at the repetition frequency of 10 MHz. The setup including the laser source occupies an area of 1 m2 and is stable so that the intensity fluctuation of the laser harmonics can be less than 0.2 % for 4 h. We present the isotropic harmonic signal of a gold mirror of 0.5 pW and demonstrate the integrity and sensitivity of the setup. We also show the polarization-dependent six-fold pattern of the harmonics of a few-layer WSe2, from which we infer the degree of local-field effects. Finally, we describe the extendibility of the setup to investigate the samples in various conditions such as cryogenic, strained, ultrafast non-equilibrium, and high magnetic fields.
Accurate calibration of polarization dependent optical elements is often necessary in optical experiments. A versatile polarimeter device to measure the polarization state of light is a valuable tool in these experiments. Here we report a rotating waveplate-based polarimeter capable of complete Stokes vector analysis of collimated light. Calibration of the device allows accurate measurements over a range of wavelengths, with a bandwidth of >30 nm in this implementation. A photo-interrupter trigger system supplies the phase information necessary for full determination of the Stokes vector. An Arduino microcontroller performs rapid analysis and displays the results on a liquid crystal display. The polarimeter is compact and can be placed anywhere on an optical table on a single standard post. The components to construct the device are only a fraction of the cost of commercially available devices while the accuracy and precision of the measurements are of the same order of magnitude.
The motivation for a cosmic muon veto (CMV) detector is to explore the possibility of locating the proposed large Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector at the India based Neutrino Observatory (INO) at a shallow depth. An initial effort in that direction, through the assembly and testing of a $sim$ 1 m $times$ 1 m $times$ 0.3 m plastic scintillator based detector, is described. The plan for making a CMV detector for a smaller prototype mini-ICAL is also outlined.
Time- and number-resolved photon detection is crucial for photonic quantum information processing. Existing photon-number-resolving (PNR) detectors usually have limited timing and dark-count performance or require complex fabrication and operation. Here we demonstrate a PNR detector at telecommunication wavelengths based on a single superconducting nanowire with an integrated impedance-matching taper. The prototyping device was able to resolve up to five absorbed photons and had 16.1 ps timing jitter, <2 c.p.s. device dark count rate, $sim$86 ns reset time, and 5.6% system detection efficiency (without cavity) at 1550 nm. Its exceptional distinction between single- and two-photon responses is ideal for coincidence counting and allowed us to directly observe bunching of photon pairs from a single output port of a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. This detector architecture may provide a practical solution to applications that require high timing resolution and few-photon discrimination.
The focal-plane detector system for the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment consists of a multi-pixel silicon p-i-n-diode array, custom readout electronics, two superconducting solenoid magnets, an ultra high-vacuum system, a high-vacuum system, calibration and monitoring devices, a scintillating veto, and a custom data-acquisition system. It is designed to detect the low-energy electrons selected by the KATRIN main spectrometer. We describe the system and summarize its performance after its final installation.
A beam imaging detector was developed by coupling a multi-strip anode with delay line readout to an E$times$B microchannel plate (MCP) detector. This detector is capable of measuring the incident position of the beam particles in one-dimension. To assess the spatial resolution, the detector was illuminated by an $alpha$-source with an intervening mask that consists of a series of precisely-machined slits. The measured spatial resolution was 520$mu$m FWHM, which was improved to 413$mu$m FWHM by performing an FFT of the signals, rejecting spurious signals on the delay line, and requiring a minimum signal amplitude. This measured spatial resolution of 413$mu$m FWHM corresponds to an intrinsic resolution of 334$mu$m FWHM when the effect of the finite slit width is de-convoluted. To understand the measured resolution, the performance of the detector is simulated with the ion-trajectory code SIMION.