Download Optics Is…

OPTICS IS…
OPTICS IS…
BIG
The UofA Steward Observatory Mirror Lab
casts mirrors up to 8.5 meters in diameter
OPTICS IS…
SMALL
An array of 1600 of these tiny lenses easily
fits on a quarter. They are used in a
Shack-Hartmann optical test system
OPTICS IS…
HOT
National Ignition Facility at
Lawrence Livermore will
deposit 1.8MJ in 2
nanosec onto a 2 mm
diameter tritium target,
heating it to 100,000,000K
OPTICS IS…
COOL
Laser cooling and
trapping at OSC can
capture and slow down
individual atoms until
their effective
temperature is
0.0000001K.
OPTICS IS…
FAST
A 9 micron fiber can carry data at
a rate of 10 Gbit/sec. Using
dense wavelength-division
multiplexing (DWDM, 16
wavelengths), 2,000,000
simultaneous phone
converstations can be
transmitted through a single fiber
OPTICS IS…
SLOW
Using a new process, it
now takes only 27 days to
grow KDP crystals to this
size for frequency
multiplication (It used to
take 1 year!)
OPTICS IS…
NEAR
Scanning tunneling
microscopy (STM) at OSC
can get close enough to
resolve individual atoms
(like these three
buckyballs).
OPTICS IS…
FAR
UofA NICMOS on Hubble
Space Telescope found
this galaxy 12 billion light
years distant. OSC
contributions to HST
include discovery of the
original out-of-focus
problems
OPTICS IS…
NEW
LED’s are now available in
three primary colors (great
for displays) and in white for
illumination.
A violet laser diode (400nm)
is a recent introduction;
expect smaller spot sizes
and denser data storage.
OPTICS IS…
OLD
In 1609, Galileo built a
telescope based on an
earlier design and used it
to discover four of Jupiter’s
moons
OPTICS IS…
NIGHT
A Gen III image intensifier
can produce a useful
image under starlight. You
can see a 6’ tall man at a
distance of 580 yards.
OPTICS IS…
DAY
The sulfur lamp, the size of
a golf ball, produces nearly
100 times as much light as
a conventional HID lamp,
nearly 1000 times as much
as a 40 watt tungsten
lamp.
OPTICS IS…
VISIBLE
Revo polarized
sunglasses were
invented by a
graduate of the
Optical Sciences
Center
OPTICS IS…
INVISIBLE
Heat associated with a
neck and back pain is
easily viewed with an
infrared thermograph