Laser, Optics and Instrumentation Laboratory (LOIL)
Kunal Mitra, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Co-director
Chelakara Subramanian, Ph.D., P.Eng, Professor, Aerospace Engineering, Co-director
LOIL exploits current technologies in continuous wave and short-pulse lasers and optics to develop new techniques for measuring and characterizing material properties. Faculty and graduate students are involved in analyzing the interaction of these lasers with different materials for various applications. Biomedical applications focus on detecting and irradiating tumors and inhomogeneities in tissues. Material characterization/processing applications involve detection of defects in materials such as debonding of thermal protection tile systems and thermal response of materials subjected to high-energy radiation. Remote sensing applications focus on lightning detection in cloud media and landmines in shallow waters. The challenge of integrating laser sources, system optics, instrumentation, measurement schemes and data acquisition provides students with new learning experiences in these areas. Equipment currently in use includes a mode-locked short-pulse laser, high power continuous wave lasers, a modulator, an ultrafast photodetector, a sampling head oscilloscope, a streak camera, miscellaneous optics and optical accessories, a thermal camera and an image processing system.