The Ultrafast and Nanoscale
Optics group laboratories are equipped with a variety of
the opto-electronic equipment required for our research,
e.g., Femtosecond laser systems, Ion Ar+ lasers, Infrared
lasers, He-Ne lasers operated in visible wavelength range,
optical tables, spatial light modulators, signal analyzers,
CCD arrays, and other basic optical and electro-optical
components. Much of the experimental equipment is interfaced
with Pentium based PCs. For computer aided design and modeling
our group uses several SUN and high-end PC and PowerPC workstations
as well as access to the Cray90 supercomputer through the
SDSC. Code-V, a state-of-the-art optical system computer-aided-design
program, is available. Several computer aided design stations
for mask design are in operation. Furthermore,
various standard microelectronics fabrication and testing
equipment is available in the School of Engineering, including
an E-beam lithography facility based on the Cambridge EBMF
10.5 electron-beam lithography system, etching facilities
(reactive ion-beam etcher, ion-beam mill), ion implantation
equipment, interferometric surface testing equipment, plasma-enhanced
CVD reactor, E-beam evaporator, rf and magnetron sputtering,
mask aligners, etc. Device packaging facilities include
a metal plating bath, a thermo-sonic compression wedge bonder,
and a die bonder.
Ultra Short Pulse Laser
Spitfire ultra short
pulse laser system
The groups newest laser system is a state-of-the-art
high peak power ultrashort pulse laser system manufactured
by Spectra Physics. This system can produce 50 femtosecond
long pulses across a continuous spectrum with wavelengths
from 300 nanometers to 10 micrometers. The complete system
consists of 5 units: the Tsunami, Millennia, Merlin, Spitfire
and OPA-800. The first component of the system, the Millennia,
is a diode pumped laser which optically pumps the Tsunami,
a femtosecond Ti:Sapphire laser that produces a 50 fs seed
pulse with a repetition rate of 80MHz. This short pulse
is used as a seed for the Merlin, a YLF laser, whose output
is used to pump the Spitfire, a Ti:Sapphireregenerative
amplifier which produces a pulse of up to 1 mJ peak power
with a 1 KHz repetition rate. The amplified pulse from the Spitfire is then introduced to
the OPA-800, where an optical parametric process as well
as second and fourth harmonic generation are used to generate
the desired output wavelength. Our second femtosecond pulse
laser system, from Coherent Laser Group, uses an Argon ion
laser to pump a Mira 900 ultra-short pulse laser, which
produces picosecond to 200 femtosecond pulses in the infrared
wavelength region.
Micro-Fabrication System
Chemical assisted ion beam
etching system
We have recently installed a chemically
assisted ion beam etching (CAIBE) system. Manufactured by
IntelVac, this system consists of an electropolished 316
stainless steel chamber, equiped with a Commonwealth Scientific
12" Kaufman type RF Ion source and an 8"CF load
and manipultaor. The system is fitted with a completely
dry pump system of hybrid turbos and dry backing pumps for
both load lock and chamber. The system is provided with
an Ultra Purity Gas handling system consisting of 5 individually
controlled Tylan Mass Flow controllers. The controls are
Allen Bradley PLC state of the art and the whole system
is mounted in an all stainless steal frame for clean room
instalation. For generation of sub-micron masks (e.g. for
use with our new CAIBE), we have fabricated an e-beam lithography
system. Based on a JEOL 6400 scanning electron microscope
(SEM), we installed the NPGS system, which uses a micro-computer
and fast A/D board to enable arbitrary control of the e-beam
scanning position. This system is capable of writing feature
sizes less than 50 nm and as large as the field of view
of the SEM (~10 mm).
Nano3 is the cleanroom located at Calit2. Its users
are able to take advantage of state-of-the-art nanofabrication capabilities.
ECE Department
Undergraduate and graduate
photonics laboratory
Our department features an extensive
phtonics laboratory for research related to coursework in
photonics. In the picture on the right, an experiment using
the photorefractive crystal BaTiO3 to perform real time holography
for use in a phase conjugate mirror scheme and image amplification
is shown. The undergarduate and graduate photonics series
spans five courses. These cover the theory as well as experimental
work across a wide variety of optics phenomena including:
geometrical, guided-wave and fiber optics, Fourier transform,
real-time holographyas well as computer generated holography.
This series also covers a range of optoelectronics including
electrooptics, acoustooptics, photodetection and laser amplifiers
and modulators. Our department also offers an excellent series
of undergraduate and graduate coursework on semiconductor
physics and fabrication, which includes access and training
in our central fabrication facility.
