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2004
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Laser-mode formation in Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs)
(May 2004)
A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a matter wave on a macroscopic scale. The creators of the first BECs were immediately (more or less) awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, and this new state of matter continues to excite. Our group's work draws analogies between light beams in laser cavities and BECs in traps, leading us to predict new ways of control this exotic state of matter.
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2002
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Geometrical optics of stable laser resonators
(November 2002)
Laser mode formation can be understood in terms of wave optics. This approach gives 'the full picture', but things can get very complicated. Ray optics has always been somewhat neglected in this field, but its explanations for important aspects of laser modes such as their structural stability possess a beautiful simplicity.
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A. Forrester, M. Lönnqvist, M. J. Padgett, and J. Courtial, Why are the eigenmodes of stable resonators structurally stable?, Opt. Lett. 27, 1869-1871 (2002)
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2001
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Fractal video feedback
(December 2001)
Video feedback occurs when a video camera points at its own monitor. The best-known video-feedback effect results in the monitor displaying a smaller image of itself, which in turn displays a smaller image of itself, which in turn... Our group started to investigate video feedback as a analogy to fractal laser modes, and was surprised by the findings.
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J. Courtial, J. Leach, and M. J. Padgett, Image processing - Fractals in pixellated video feedback, Nature 414, 864 (2001)
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2000
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Fractal laser modes
(December 2000)
Fractals abound in nature - ferns, mountains, and clouds are just three examples. These patterns are not what one would expect to find in a laser. However, in every laser resonator a mechanisms is at work that tends to shape the laser mode's intensity profile into a fractal pattern.
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J. Courtial and M. J. Padgett, Monitor-outside-a-monitor effect and self-similar fractal structure in the eigenmodes of unstable optical resonators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5320-5323 (2000)
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