Femtosecond Laser Timing Measurement

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
2011–12

The SLAC clinic team is working with researchers from the LINAC Coherent Light Source, the world‘s brightest X-ray laser.¬† Our goal is to reduce timing errors that occur when synchronizing laser pulses in their pump-probe experiments.¬† Since researchers believe the current 250 femtosecond (( 2.5 times 10^{-13}~text{ s} )) timing error is primarily caused by their photodiodes, the team built a timing platform to characterize the errors introduced by these devices.

Advisor(s): Richard Campbell Haskell.

Team: Michael James Bowerman ’13, Say (Josh) Young Cook ’13, Chuhyon John Eom ’13, Robert A. Hoyt ’12, Kevin James Samrick ’12, and Susan Tan ’12.