Lasers are nearly everywhere. Lasers are in your phone, in clocks, security scanners, automobiles, hospital operating rooms, satellites, airplanes, undersea cables, dance floors and bars, and the entire internet. And that's not to mention newer stuff, like virtual reality hardware or quantum computers or gravity wave detectors or attosecond x-rays (whatever they are). Without lasers, a lot of things we take for granted now and a lot of things we imagine for our future simply couldn't work at all. But how much do you really know about them? What are they? How do they work? You're at Stanford now, so let's find out. That's what this IntroSem is about. By the end of the class, you will not only know what a laser is, and how it works, but you will build one that you can keep.
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-AQR, WAY-SMA
Lasers are nearly everywhere. Lasers are in your phone, in clocks, security scanners, automobiles, hospital operating rooms, satellites, airplanes, undersea cables, dance floors and bars, and the entire internet. And that's not to mention newer stuff, like virtual reality hardware or quantum computers or gravity wave detectors or attosecond x-rays (whatever they are). Without lasers, a lot of things we take for granted now and a lot of things we imagine for our future simply couldn't work at all. But how much do you really know about them? What are they? How do they work? You're at Stanford now, so let's find out. That's what this IntroSem is about. By the end of the class, you will not only know what a laser is, and how it works, but you will build one that you can keep.
Offered in Winter 2027 at Stanford University.