A Busy Few Days

I had a busy few days and didn't get a chance to update this blog until now. I have everything written down in my lab journal thankfully.

Wednesday
Sile ordered my CCD camera in the morning so during the afternoon, Yuqiang let me use his stage for fibre-pulling. The fibre I pulled was okay except for a slight bend in the taper (sorted out with slow pulling). It had a diameter of about 1 micrometre. I moved it over to my bench so I could splice it to my laser fibre and photodetector. I removed the U-bench and filter I was using to reduce the power from the laser before it hit the detector. I connected the other end of the taper up to the DSO and increased the pump current above the lasing threshold... And I got no signal.
Jonathan pointed out that I'd need a much bigger pump current to overcome the transmission loss across the taper. I had the current driver limited to about 35mA to save the precious photodetector - I was definitely going to get nothing through the taper at that current! Also, I didn't really need the photodetector here - I just wanted to see that there was light coming out the other end. Duh. I dunno, I feel like the lab blonde.
I disconnected the detector, delimited the current driver and set the current to 300mA. Lots of light out the other end! I then began reconnecting the photodetector to the fibre and DSO. And, what did I do? I pulled the taper to damn hard and broke it. I deservedly got an 'I told you so' from Jonathan. I called it a day and went home.

Thursday
I was wondering whether I should put the camera and microscope in the horizontal or vertical plane. The amount of water-bead suspension was a limiting factor for the horizontal configuration - the surface tension of the water is just not enough to stop it from running down away from the taper. Jonathan suggested using a plastic drawer divider for the glass slide platform. So he drilled a 15mm hole in the center of the divider and I filed it down until it was 2cm in diameter. I then drilled two holes for some M4 screws at either end - I could then screw it onto some posts and secure it to the bench. The end result is the very modest-looking platform shown below.

The halogen lamp I'm using to illuminate the slide gets really hot and the platform absorbs quite a bit of heat from it. I hope that thermal excitation doesn't perturb the beads in the water.
I had to go home relatively early because I had to finish my talk for the Journal Club next day.

Friday
I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on my talk and arrived into Tyndall at about 2pm. My CCD camera had arrived yesterday evening so I went down to Michael in the lab to see how he had connected his up. He showed me which wires I need to connect and where (another case of lab-blondeness).
I gave my talk at 3pm and it went alright I think. I have given one talk before now and that went pretty badly so I was hoping I wouldn't be nervous for this one. The atmosphere is very informal so I was grand. In hindsight, I maybe should have picked a more controversial paper.

After the talk, I went down to the lab to solder the camera wires onto the BNC connector. Like a twat, I broke the coppers while soldering and the wire ended up alot shorter on one side by time I finished fixing it. I'll finish this on Monday and make a new taper if the rig is free.