In this project students will acquire basic knowledge and hands on experience in designing and fabricating optical couplers and obtaining their optical properties. The students will design, in both ray optics and wave optics regimes, optical couplers made of various metal oxides available in our laboratory. The students will also fabricate the couplers and characterize their optical properties using a set up including a white light source, a spectrometer, and an optical fiber coupled photodetector. The students will conduct the study with the view toward applications in highly concentrated solar light for dayligning and solar thermal power generation.
Location: NASA Ames
Mentor: Nobuhiko Kobayashi, Faculty, Associate Professor
Secondary mentor: Kate Norris (UCSC Ph.D. candidate)