Quantum education lab qp-tech at ACP headed by Dr. Rudrakant Sollapur.

Experimental Optics Course (1st semester)

The experimental optics courses teaches hands-on lab experience and also offers some remotely controllable setups for training purposes.
Quantum education lab qp-tech at ACP headed by Dr. Rudrakant Sollapur.
Image: Fraunhofer IOF Jena

Having extensive hands-on experience is one of the most valuable professional attributes a true optics and photonics expert must possess. To strengthen your laboratory experience from the very beginning of your master's degree program, ASP provides an experimental optics course where high-level experiments can be performed using exclusive research-grade components and equipment. The laboratory equipment contains continuous-wave and pulsed lasers and allows for training in interferometry, linear and nonlinear spectroscopy, optical time-domain reflectometry, and optical tweezing, to name a few. These techniques were selected with respect to their educational value and devised by ASP's senior scientists and academic tutors. They are fully operated by ASP Master's degree students.

  • Fundamentals

    Various optical phenomena like refraction, reflection, and total internal reflection are investigated in this experiment.

    Laser goggles in the He-Ne-laser lab.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Adaptive Optics

    Adaptive optics are widely used in optical systems like telescopes and microscopes for dynamic correction of wavefront distortions. Adaptive optical components have also become important for high-power lasers and beam and pulse shaping.

    Adaptive optics setup in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Adaptive Optics (XRTL online version)

    This Extended Reality Twin Lab (XRTL) version of the Adaptive Optics setup provides a full-scale, remotely controllable experiment integrated in the regular curriculum and is mainly used by online master's students.

    Screenshot of the XRPL - Single Page Application used to remote control our Adaptive optics setup.
    Screenshot: Falko Sojka

  • Fabry-Perot Interferometer

    The Fabry-Perot interferometer arrangement acts as an optical resonator which may result in an extremely high spectral resolving power.

    Fabry-Perot interferometer in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • He-Ne Laser

    A helium-neon laser is a gas laser consisting of a mixture of helium and neon gas in a ratio between 5:1 and 20:1 bound in a glass tube.

    Experimental Optics Course: He-Ne-Laser.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Michelson Interferometer

    The basic Michelson interferometer setup uses any kind of beam splitter to divide one beam of light into two beams, each of them back-reflected to the beam splitter and recombined and directed to the fourth arm where any kind of detector is placed.

    Michelson-Interferometer in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Michelson Interferometer (XRTL online version)

    This Extended Reality Twin Lab (XRTL) version of the Michelson Interferometer provides a full-scale, remotely controllable inteferometric setup integrated in the regular curriculum and is mainly used by online master's students.

    Remotely controllable Michelson interferometer with digital twin (XR TwinLab).
    Image: Jari Domke and Falko Sojka.

  • Nd:YAG Laser

    We perform Q-switching on our solid-state (Nd:YAG) laser to modulate the internal gain/losses of the laser cavity in order to achieve high peak power and short pulse duration.

    Nd:YAG-laser in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Spectroscopy

    This setup aims at the fundamental goal of spectroscopy, which is to investigate the properties of materials using light.

    Spectroscopy setup in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Optical Gyroscope

    Laser gyroscopes are optical instruments for measuring the angular velocity based on the Sagnac effect. In combination with accelerometers, they allow position and direction estimation by the dead reckoning technique.

    Optical gyroscope setup in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Optical Time Domain Reflectometry

    Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (OTDR) can, for example, provide information about the attenuation of a fiber, the splice quality inside the network and connection losses between two fibers.

    Optical Time Domain Reflectometry setup in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)

  • Optical Tweezers

    Micrometer-sized particles can be trapped and moved by strongly focused light due to reflection and refraction of the incident photons. The effect can be used to control and manipulate transparent microscopic particles like polymer microspheres, microorganisms or cells.

    Optical tweezing setup in the experimental optics course.
    Image: Jan-Peter Kasper (University of Jena)