Overview of research areas in CfAI

In this series of one-hour seminars, you will learn about the diverse range of research areas that CfAI works in. The seminars are designed to be accessible to a first year PhD student and above or those with an interest in the field. The seminars are informal, with questions on the subject being welcomed throughout the duration. The seminar topics are as follows:

• Fusion (Marco Cecconello)
• Diamond Machining (Cyril Bourgenot)
• Biophotonics (John Girkin)
• Astrophotonics (Robert Harris)
• Adaptive Optics (Tim Morris)
• KIDs (Kieran O’Brien)
• Free-space optics (James Osborn)
• Turbulence Profiling (Richard Wilson)
• Drones (Anthony Brown)
• Gamma Ray Astronomy (Paula Chadwick)
• Free Space Optical Communications (Andrew Reeves)

Learning objectives:

• To develop an understanding of each of the research areas CfAI covers
• To recognise the terminology associated with those research areas

CfAI Outreach Workshops

Communication of research to the wider public is an important part of being a scientist and working in academia. I run a series of four afternoon workshops (3 hours each) in which we will explore outreach and public engagement opportunities at CfAI. The aim of the workshops is to work together in small groups to produce demonstrations and other materials that we can take to University outreach events such as Celebrate Science (https://www.durham.ac.uk/celebrate-science/). All PhD students are welcome to attend these workshops and this is an opportunity to get to know the current students in an informal setting.

Learning objectives:

• Understand the key concepts and goals of public science communication
• Develop outreach demos/materials alongside other students

Mechanical and Instrumentation Design

In this course, delivered as three one-hour discussions and with some self-study work set over a week, you will learn about the basics of mechanical design and the considerations that go into designing an instrument incorporating optics, electronics and mechanics. The self-study work includes conceptual design of a precision opto-mechanical device, and a team exercise, set over three days, to design an instrument that incorporates optical detection, pneumatics, electronics and some consideration of user centred design.

Learning Objectives

• Understand basic technical drawing
• Appreciate basic instrument design to incorporate optics, mechanics and electronics
• How to present and explain a design concept and implementation
• Team working in instrumentation design

Optical Design

Introduction to Optical Engineering

The course begins with the fundamentals of Geometrical and Matrix Optics, progresses into Aberration Theory, covering both monochromatic and chromatic aberrations, and focuses on understanding which parameters in an optical system or surface contribute to each aberration. The final part of the course covers Diffraction and Image Quality.

The complete program is as follows: Geometrical Optics

• General Theory
• Fermat’s Principle
• Gaussian Optics and the paraxial behaviour of components and surfaces Optical Systems and Aberrations
• Matrix Ray Tracing
• Stops and Pupils
• Introduction to Monochromatic Aberrations Monochromatic Aberrations
• Gauss-Seidel Aberrations
• Behaviour of Lenses and Mirrors – Aplanatic Points
• Impact of Pupil on Aberrations Aspheric Surfaces and Chromatic Aberration
• Use of symmetric aspheric surfaces, dispersion, and chromatic aberration
• Use of Zernike Polynomials to define OPD or WFE profiles Diffraction and Image Quality
• Diffraction: ‘Near Field’ and ‘Far Field’
• Gaussian Beam Propagation
• Definitions of Image Quality

Learning Objectives

• To address gaps in optics and optical engineering knowledge for PhD students from diverse academic backgrounds.
• To introduce the concept of aberrations, understand how they are produced, and prepare students for the upcoming “Optical Systems Design with Zemax OpticStudio” course.

Introduction to ZEMAX

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to Zemax OpticStudio, focusing on sequential ray tracing, optical system optimization, and tolerance analysis. Through practical exercises, participants will learn to design, optimize, and analyze optical components and systems, such as singlet lenses, telescopes, and aspheric surfaces.

The complete program is as follows: Introduction to Zemax

• Introduction to Zemax and sequential ray tracing
• Paraxial lens
• Coordinate breaks
• Singlet lens
• Lens catalogue
• Exercise: optimisation of a real 4f folded relay system Sequential Ray Tracing and optimisation
• Optimisation of a singlet lens
• Optimisation of an achromatic doublet
• Optimisation of Ritchey Chretien telescope
• Exercise: Optimise an achromatic doublet, a Cassegrain telescope Tolerance Analysis with Zemax
• Tolerancing of an aspheric singlet
• Type of tolerancing – Monte Carlo
• Exercise: tolerancing a Cook triplet

Learning Objectives

• To provide students with the confidence to autonomously use Zemax for their PhD projects.
• To teach students how to import catalogue lenses from suppliers such as Thorlabs or Edmund Optics.
• To enable students to perform full optimization of customized optical systems.
• To introduce the concept of manufacturing tolerances and demonstrate how to evaluate their impact on optical system quality.

Practical opto-mechanics

The practical optics course gives you hand-on experience of assembling and aligning optical systems of the kind you may be expected to use during the course of your studies. The course comprises a 1-hour introductory lecture followed by a longer (3-4) hour practical session where you will align an optical system using lenses, mirrors and simple alignment tools.

By the end of this course you will:

• Have the ability to assemble and align simple optical systems
• Know how to work with optical components correctly without damaging them
• What the best practices for working in (shared) CfAI optical laboratories
• Where you can get optics and optomechanics from
• How not to kill/maim/blind/poison yourself or others whilst doing so

What is not covered

• How to design complex optical systems
• Every single trick/technique/method possible for aligning any optical system

Detectors

Detectors are essential to almost all areas of research undertaken by CfAI. In this course, you will learn about the different types of detectors used in research and how they might be applied to your own scientific area. 

Learning objectives:

• An understanding of what makes a good detector
• Make sure all CfAI PG students have an understating of detectors
• What is the right balance of cost and capability for your experiment
• Knowledge of PMTs and Photodiodes
• Knowledge of some of the key terminology
• Calibration sources and issues
• Knowledge of CCDs and CMOS devices
• Knowledge of the Photon Transfer Curve
• Understanding of what makes a good detector for your application
• Knowledge of some superconducting detector technologies
• Basic understanding of how a data acquisition system can affect the performance of a detector
• Knowledge of some additional CCD-based solutions

Data Interfacing Techniques

Data interfacing refers to "exchange of information across a shared boundary between separate components of a computer system" (hardware, software, peripheral devices, etc). This course is a series of four 2-hour practical workshops that aim to teach basic data interfacing techniques useful for experimental research.

Learning objectives

• Understand the main physical types of serial and parallel data interfaces.
• Be familiar with the basics of the Raspberry Pi single-board computer and its interfaces.
• Be able to write an instrumentation data I/O interface on the Raspberry Pi using the Python programming language and send data between two Raspberry Pis.
• Be able to communicate with an external device via a serial interface.
• Be able to use a Python Application Programming Interface (API) to control a camera.
• Be aware of the different types of fast data links used for high speed camera interfaces and their bandwidth limitations.
• Use an external trigger with a high speed camera to record high speed video.

Coding Skills for Physics Researchers

Being able to write code to create solutions is a key part of almost all research in physics, from simulating the outcomes of experiments, through to analysing data, all the way to producing plots for publications. This course introduces many skills which are appropriate for new researchers, using a narrative structure to solve a physics problem from start to end, with an emphasis on having an exposure to what tools are available and how they are useful so that you become aware of the possibilities that are appropriate for your research. Starting with prepared material and your own laptop, we will develop code together using commonly available tools, and interactively by using a mix of presentations and hands-on coding. The course assumes familiarity with Python, and especially the Numpy library, and having a laptop with installed software (instructions to setup a standard CIS Windows laptop appropriately will be sent in advance).

Learning objectives:

By the end of the course, you will have

• Learnt how to make a numerical simulation of a physical process
• Learnt how to record simulated data to files, using those data files to perform numerical analysis
• Understand what version control is and how to use it
• Learnt how to leverage computers other than your laptop for large-scale computation
• Learnt how to produce plots suitable for a paper or thesis.

Adaptive Optics

Adaptive Optics is a critical technology in several activities including astronomy, free-space optical communications, space surveillance, and bioscience. As light propagates through a turbulent medium, refractive index variations cause the wavefront to deform. These aberrations, when focussed by an optical system, lead to distortions in an image and hence limits the sensitivity or precision of the measurement. In this short course we will:

• discover the core components of an Adaptive Optics system
• understand the state of the art in turbulence measurement and modelling
• develop an analytical model of an Adaptive Optics system based on knowledge of the statistics of the turbulence medium
• see how Adaptive Optics are used in practice for astronomy and free-space optical communications