Selected Publications
It has been known for decades that microscopic dust particles can become trapped near the focus of a continuous laser beam when surrounded by ambient gas such as air. In this photophoretic interaction, the laser heats the particle, which interacts with surrounding gas molecules. Trapped particles typically scatter significant laser light as they are suspended in midair and can be easily observed from the side of the beam. We report on the first on-axis images of photophoretically trapped particles together with the laser-beam profile responsible for the trapping. The radial structure of the laser is recorded using 1:1 imaging, where the 1 W beam must be strongly attenuated without introducing distortion. The trapped particle is weakly illuminated using a different wavelength, chosen to transmit through the filters used to attenuate the laser.
The individual polarization components of nonlinear Thomson scattering arise from the separate dimensions of electron figure-8 motion caused by a linearly polarized laser field. We present the first measurements of nonlinear Thomson scattering in both emission hemispheres. In the electron average rest frame, the shape of the electron figure-8 path is symmetric about the laser polarization dimension. However, the periodic electron velocity is intrinsically asymmetric. The full scattering emission pattern reveals this asymmetry and the direction that electrons move around the figure-8 path.
We present measurements of X-ray Parametric Down Conversion at the Advanced Photon Source synchrotron facility. Using an incoming pump beam at 22 keV, we observe the simultaneous, elastic emission of down-converted photon pairs generated in a diamond crystal. The pairs are detected using high count rate silicon drift detectors with low noise. Production by down-conversion is confirmed by measuring time–energy correlations in the detector signal, where photon pairs within an energy window ranging from 10 to 12 keV are only observed at short time differences. By systematically varying the crystal misalignment and detector positions, we obtain results that are consistent with the constant total of the down-converted signal. Our maximum rate of observed pairs was 130/h, corresponding to a conversion efficiency for the down-conversion process of 5.3±0.5×10−13.