<mumptai>
I'd like to bounce an observation to the channel
<mumptai>
fpgas are slowly gaining in popularity in the internet diy sphere
<mumptai>
but there is still more material published on general hdl modules, evaluation-style and universal hardware modules than on actual application of this technology
<mumptai>
on problems outside its very own domain
<mumptai>
might one say the community is rather closed, and opening up to other domains would grow the whole thing?
<sb0>
what do you mean 'other domains'?
<sb0>
oh, you mean that people only do stuff for hobbyists and electronics engineers, e.g. devboards, FPGA modules, dev stuff like openvizsla and redpitaya?
<sb0>
that's a general problem with the diy community. just look at 3d printers...
<sb0>
well, 'problem'. better that than the BS many hw startups are doing (internet of things etc.)
<sb0>
rjo, what exactly are the "bd" and "bdd" lasers doing in the detection experiment?
<sb0>
and what do "bd" and "bdd" stand for?
<mumptai>
"other domains" == artistic domain, like milkymist
<mumptai>
yeahh, i think 3d printers are not for printing 3d printers ;)
<mumptai>
but of course other domains could be everything
<rjo>
sb0: bd is "blue doppler", bdd is "blue doppler detuned". blue because they are accessing a transition in the short wavelength S to P3/2 line manifold (we call the S to P1/2 "red"). doppler because they predominantly do doppler cooling. detuned because that laser is not "near resonant" (within ~40 MHz) but further detuned, somewhere around 500MHz red.
<rjo>
bd is used at -1/2 Gamma (~ -20MHz, half the linewidth red detuned) to do doppler cooling and on-resonance at "0 MHz detuning" to do detection. bdd is a safety net that can cool the ion if it is very hot and has a large doppler shift.