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Abstract

The Cryogenic Storage Ring (CSR) at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear
Physics in Heidelberg provides conditions for groundbreaking experiments in fundamental
research in the fields of atomic and molecular physics, as well as astrophysics.
For some of these experiments the application of lasers is necessary to
perform spectroscopy, ion excitation or fragmentation. The previous setup did
not provide ideal conditions for laser performance (stability, power output) nor
laser safety. In this work I present design and construction of a new laser beam
transfer line, and highlight its advantages but also the challenges arising from
moving the lasers furthers away from CSR. Some of the lasers diverge greatly
when propagating through free space. It is, therefore, a challenge to maximize
the resulting laser power. To overcome this difficulty it was crucial to measure the
different beam profiles and include these parameters in a simulation to describe
laser beam propagation realistically. With this simulation the ideal position for
optics can be found. Finally, the current status of the project is presented and
the real setup compared to the simulation.