Uncertain Principles: What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 2: Lasers and Optics

The lab porn keeps coming, and it’s not being faked.

All of these elements are arranged in very particular ways to get the beams where they need to go. Of course, this is incredibly sensitive to small changes in the position of the optical elements, which is why everything is bolted to the surface of an optical table. These tables are large, heavy tables designed to minimize vibrations, and with steel tops having 1/4″-20 holes drilled in a 1″ grid over the whole surface. The mounts holding the mirrors and lenses and so forth are bolted to the table, so they’re fixed in position unless you do something really stupid to knock them out of place.

Of, if only I had a dollar for each time I did something stupid and knocked an optics mount out of place …