William Angerer - Department of Physics and Astronomy - University ...

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S-polarized
P-polarized
Figure 3.2: Prism pair to rotate p-polarized light to s-polarized light.
the fundamental and second-harmonic beams constrains the second-order susceptibility
elements probed. The fundamental output from a Ti:Ah03 laser is p-polarized
(horizontally polarized). vVe used a simple combination of prisms [38] to rotate the
p-polarized beam by 90° for the fundamental s-polarized measurements. As indicated
by Fig. 3.2. the prism pair lowered the height of the fundamental beam. The original
beam height was restored using a combination of gold coated mirrors. Although this
optical setup is not the most elegant solution for converting a p-polarized beam into
an s-polarized beam, it avoided the problem associated with using a half wave plate
over a broad spectral range. In the latter case, for wavelengths far from the central
operating wavelength of the half wave plate, the waveplate is unable to introduce a
relative phase shift of IT between polarization components of the wave, and is therefore
unable to rotate one linear polarization into another.
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