Precise alignment of a longitudinal Pockels cell for time-resolved circular dichroism experiments

Thibault Dartigalongue (1) , François Hache (1)

1 LOB - Laboratoire d'optique et biosciences

Artifacts in time-resolved circular dichroism experiments are carefully analyzed. We show that alignment of the longitudinal Pockels cell that modulates the laser polarization in such experiments is crucial. By developing a calculation of the behavior of a slightly misaligned Pockels cell, we are able to propose a simple alignment procedure. This procedure is based on the use of an analyzer at 0° or 45° of the Pockels cell axes, and it allows us to improve the alignment by 3 orders of magnitude and to reduce the artifact below the noise level in our experimental setup. Cop. 2003 Optical Society of America.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Thibault Dartigalongue, François Hache. Precise alignment of a longitudinal Pockels cell for time-resolved circular dichroism experiments. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 2003, 20 (8), pp.1780. ⟨10.1364/JOSAB.20.001780⟩. ⟨hal-00836929⟩