Chapter 1
What is the significance of the Biot-Savart law?
Does Maxwell's correction to Ampere's law change the law from an ideal vacuum to
one that considers interactions with materials?
What does Jp stand for? What causes a non-zero value for Jp? What do Maxwell's
equation's look like in terms of polarization P?
How familiar do we need to be with the derivation of the wave equation in a nonvacuum environment?
Chapter 2
Could you go through homework problem 2.3?
I have trouble understanding physically what a plane wave is and the associated
vectors (i.e. k). Is there a way to visualize or understand physically these concepts?
What is the Poynting vector physically and what is its significance?
Could we please do a couple examples to help delineate between homogeneous and
isotropic?
Under what conditions are P and E parallel for travelling EM waves?
Chapter 2
In equation 2.30, why can the imaginary part of X(w) be neglected? What does this
have to do with small absorption?
Can we review the physical interpretations of the equations? Especially Maxwell's
equations?
In equation 2.55 in the textbook, what is meant by ufield and umedium?
Could you review the parts of the wave equation again? (real, complex, phase,
frequency...)
If I understand this correctly, the lorentz model of dielectrics uses a spring-like
system of oscillating dipoles to model the polarization and eventually the susceptibility
chi. How exactly is this achieved, why is it significant, and specifically how is the step
from 2.34 to 2.35 accomplished in particular? Why is the homogeneous solution to
2.34 not important?
What assumptions - if any - are made when deriving the refractive index for an
isotropic medium?
Chapter 3
What are the boundary conditions from Maxwells equations?
Where do complex indices of refraction come from? Are all indices truly complex, and
we simply assume the complex values are negligible?
How do the Fresnel coefficients of reflected and transmitted light for s and p
polarization behave differently as a function of incident angle?
What does brewster's angle signify again?
How much p-transmission occurs at Brewster's angle?
Chapter 3
Does the E field change direction at the boundary?
Do we have to be able to take 3.20 -3.24 all the way across?
We used the conditions for the parallel components of the electric field, but did we
use the perpendicular conditions when deriving the reflection and transmission
coefficients? Are they relevant?
Can we discuss the boundary conditions (from Maxwell's equations?) that allow us to
simplify derivations such as Snell's Law and the Fresnel coefficients?
Chapter 4
In the example on pg 110, how did they find the value for beta?
How does θ1 and θ2 being real allow us to simplify equation 4.14 into equation 4.15?
What physically changes?
Could you explain what the evanescent wave is again and how it applies to example
4.3 and the lab we did for this chapter?
Are evanescent waves actually physically there? Like are you able to see light waves
that are in the evanescent waves?
Do evanescent waves have any other notable physical effects, beyond frustrated TIR?
Chapter 4
What are the most important ideas to remember about a Fabry-Perot interferometer?
What are the mathematical relationships between the fringes?
Is there an easier way to start with info from the first interface of a multilayer system
and jump to the last interface without having to do the intermediate interfaces?
How are evanescent waves used in a physical environment?
Can we demonstrate how to calculate the reflectance for multiple films?
This may have been answered before and I just missed the answer, but why does the
multilayer transmission coefficient oscillate up and down with respect to q, as in
Figure 4.19, while r does not oscillate?
I was just wondering- I know that we choose the thickness of the coatings based on
if we want high or low reflectance/transmission. But, we have always been choosing
the minimum thickness in this class. Is there any advantage to this (as opposed to
increasing the thickness by lambda possibly), or is it just to save material or make the
coating less noticeable?
Chapter 5
Example 5.2 When would we use Snell's law combined with 5.29? Is 5.29 derived
from snell's law?
The S vector is not always parallel to k in crystals. What physical effect does this have
on the light from an observation standpoint?
Can you review how ordinary and extraordinary waves propagate in different solids?
What two quantities does the linear constitutive relation bring together? And how is it
related to the susceptibility tensor?
What are the differences between ordinary and extraordinary polarized light?
In a uniaxial crystal, what is the index of refraction in the space between the axes for
n-e and n-o ?
Chapter 5
What determines whether the k vector goes with the ordinary or extraordinary ray of
light?
Can you go over optic axes? I'm not sure I really understand what those are.
What could we expect on the exam from this chapter? What are some types of
questions we would need to know about birefringence for example?
How exactly do you use eq 5.19 to find indices of refraction in the various directions?
The Derivation in section 5.1 and 5.2. Can you review the matrix process. How much
of the derivation should we have memorized?
Along the optic axis, what happens to the term, (eps0*E+P)? If polarization doesn't
effect the ray along the axis, what significance does P have in that term in the case of
propagation along the OA.