Characterization of Laser Beam Profile in Optical Activity

Abstract

This project is about the Characterization of a Laser Beam Profile in Optical Activity and highlights the basic knowledge required to undertake the project. Laser is produced through a four-stage process. Laser is a special type of light that exhibits unique characteristics of monochromaticity, high intensity, coherence, and directionality. The instruments related to the Laser are namely: Interferometer, Beam Profilometer, and Spectrophotometer. All of these instruments work upon different phenomena An interferometer works on the principle of interference that results in the production of bright and dark fringes. A spectrophotometer is used to study the reflectance and transmittance of material when light is targeted on them. And the Beam Profilometer is used to analyze the beam profile and determines the beam size, shape, intensity, and output energy distribution. It also points out the red color laser, its production, and its applications. The purpose of this project is to calculate the rotation rate of an airplane that has an optical gyroscope. Laser from RLG fall on a photodiode that produces sine and cosine signals in analog form. These current signals are then converted and maintained to 4V p-p and are converted to TTL signals and fed to the Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA Development board. On this board, we program the FPGA using Verilog Hardware Description Language using the ISE Design tool and implement two counters to count the number of sine and cosine pulses. The main objective of the project is to calculate the rotation rate of the gyroscope. Since directly is proportional to the number of pulses obtained from the gyroscope hence we count the number of sine and cosine pulses and eventually calculate the rotation rate. The rotation rate data can be displayed on a graphical user Interface or using the built-in software in ISE Design i.e. using Chipscope