Catalog Description
Spherical and planar waves; scalar diffraction theory; Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction and application to measurement; interference and interferometers; optical transfer functions; coherent optical systems and holography. Prerequisite: Physics with calculus (PHY 223)
Course Objectives
At the end of this course, students should be able to
- Use superposition to create arbitrary waveforms
- Analyze systems of polarizers and arbitrary birefringent elements
- Calculate the optimal blaze angle for a diffraction grating
- Calculate Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction from rectangular and circular apertures
- Use a lens to Fourier transform and then filter an image
- Use mutual coherence to calculate spatial and temporal coherence
- Introduction
- Overview
- Wave Motion
- Superposition
- Lab: Spherical Waves
- Electromagnetic Theory
- Maxwell's Equations
- Wave Equation
- Dipoles
- Lab: Fresnel Reflection
- Superposition
- Monochromatic
- Quasi-monochromatic
- Fourier Transform
- Lab: Fourier Optics
- Polarization
- Linear polarizers
- Birefringence
- Retarders
- Lab: Liquid Crystals
- Two Beam Interference
- Wavefront Splitting
- Amplitude Splitting
- Stellar Interferometer
- Lab: Young's Double Slit
- Multiple Beam Interference
- Plane Parallel Plate
- Interference filters
- Thin Films
- Lab: Fabry-Perot Interferometer
- Diffraction
- Huygen's Principle
- Kirchhoff Diffraction
- Fresnel and Fraunhofer Diffraction
- Lab: Diffraction of a Square
- Coherence
- Spatial Coherence
- Temporal Coherence
- Partial Coherence
- Lab: Double Slit with Laser Diode
- Partial Coherence
- Correlation Functions
- Mutual Coherence
- van Cittert-Zernike
- Lab: Michelson Interferometer
- Holography
- Holograms of point objects
- Bragg's law
- Recording and Reconstruction
- Lab: Holography