Steven Haim
B.S. Optical Sciences and Engineering
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Senior Capstone Project
The team constructed an aerial imaging system. The system operated at an altitude 300 ft above ground level and took images at a rate of 60 frames per second. At this maximum altitude the system resolved 4inx4in square on a 4ftx4ft target and had a 20 degree field of view (FOV). The airframe and camera system was purchased commercially; system integration to the airframe and video resolution was custom engineered. Project won second place for Best Overall Design.
Directed Research
In this project I help simulate an opto-mechanical cavity with an optical supported (Via optical tweezers) secondary mirror.Currently, a primary hurtle in the operation of opto-mechanical systems in the quantum regime is the coupling of the vibrating element to a thermal reservoir via mechanical supports. Using optical tweezers to suspend the secondary mirror we may elminate losses and errors due to vibration.
Optical Tweezer Statistical Study
The nature of optical tweezers does not allow a user to produce a discrete predetermined force; instead, a randomized force in a range of forces can be produced. The current method simply takes the mean of the many measurements in a given interval. Because the dwell time varies nonlinearly with force, simply taking the mean of a given data set will give inaccurate results. The inaccuracy is due to the fact that - for a given range of forces - the dwell time for larger forces will be much longer than the mean force dwell time. Conversely, dwell time will be close to the mean force dwell time for smaller forces. This causes the mean data to be biased towards a longer dwell time.
Interships at the University of Arizona Optical Fabrication Lab
For my summer interships at the University of Arizona I was selected to work in the Optical Fabrication Lab. This lab is responsible for creating very large aspherical optics. During my intership I helped by writing test software for the Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) . I also took part in the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) corrector project. I designed a precise tip/tilt/rotation/X-Y translation stage to hold the 1 meter optic during testing.