Winry Ember

Major: Physics
Mentors: Jared Padgett, Professor 

Transimpedance Amplifier Implementation for Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Phys

The Weld Lab’s Strontium Experiment uses laser cooling techniques to create and anipulate degenerate strontium gas. This ultra-cold state of matter is a quantum mechanical object known as Bose-Einstein Condensate which can then be driven far from equilibrium to study its behavior. Attaching a transimpedance amplifier to an optical fiber on the laser table helps monitor and stabilize this sensitive experiment. This device tells the user how much light is in a fiber by taking a small portion of light and converting it into a readable voltage, and the laser can then be adjusted accordingly.