User:Andy Maloney/Notebook/Lab Notebook of Andy Maloney/2009/04/02/Optical tweezers

Collimation
Well, I was successful in getting the laser beam collimated today. I thought that doing this optical setup would allow me to use the shutter without the beam being clipped by it. Unfortunately, I didn't take into consideration the magnification of the virtual image and the inevitable magnified beam not missing the shutter.

But, the good news is that I can fix this with another lens.

Also, for some reason the perpendicular axis just doesn't want to collimate properly. It does a pretty good job and I think the reason it doesn't collimate completely with my setup right now is because of the FAC collimation on the LD. I have no clue as to what the focal length of this other lens is and it could be screwing up in my setup.

Anamorphic prisms
The anamorphic prisms work as advertised. I input the beam and the output was quasi-spherical. The power is reduced but I didn't measure it, just a visual inspection.