User:Andy Maloney/Notebook/Lab Notebook of Andy Maloney/2009/02/19/Optical tweezers
After brainstorming with everyone in the lab, we have come up with the components necessary to make our optical tweezers work. There is no way I am going to be able to list everything we decided today in my notebook so I would have thought that this entry would be useless without my ability to make it comprehensive. However, Anthony has shown me the light when it comes to organization on the wiki and today starts my first open notebook session. Below is a list of things we would like to have for our optical tweezers.
Diode laser
The laser is the most crucial part of an optical tweezers because it is what you use to tweeze things with. I have written a brief description of how to build your own diode laser using off the shelf OEM parts purchased from Thorlabs. The write up can be found here with a parts list here.
The controller we purchased has the capability to control a 1 Watt laser diode and the ability to control a peltier cooler. The diode I've priced out comes from PLT Technology. It's a 1 W 690 nm laser diode in a 9 mm can package. While we purchased one from this company, we haven't received it yet. I have tried to get in touch with the person in charge of our order, but they are stubbornly ignoring me. I think I would very much like to not recommend this company for laser diodes in the future. While they may be cheap, the customer service is terrible and not worth the worry to order from them again.
I have found this company. I sent a quote asking for a 690 nm, 1.2 W diode in the 9 mm package. We will see what happens.
- Optical isolator
- Beam shaping
- Spatial filtering
- Telescopes
Sample translation stage
- Condenser & Detector stage