PHY 5341 LAB 1: INTRODUCTION TO OPTICS I. Objective The purpose of this experiment to introduce the students various equipment within the lab: lasers, lenses, power meters, mirrors, and beam splitters. You should learn the basic terminology and phenomenology of the equipment while learning how to use it without hurting it. For example, use constant care to not get your finger prints on the optical equipment. II. Introduction Throughout our semester, we’ll be using a variety of optical components. The point of this lab is to get your hands on these components to help develop your intuition of what they do to light. III. Procedure 1) Get a tour: The first part of your lab today will be getting a tour from your TA. Your TA will show you all the basic equipment for you to play with today and what to do to ensure you don’t break it. Your TA will show you: a. A laser, how to turn it on, and now to avoid hurting it b. A power meter to measure the power of a laser beam c. Lenses, mirrors, beam splitters, how to place them in the laser path and what parts are okay to touch vs. what parts may be damaged by your finger prints. Note, some lenses cause the laser beam to converge while others will cause it to diverge. 2) Start playing: Spend about 20 min playing with the various pieces of equipment so you can get a feel for how they work and how you might be able to use them. Your TA will assign you a lab station, a lab partner, and equipment to use. You will verify with the TA that the equipment currently does not have significant damage or finger prints before you begin. 3) Accomplish missions: Spend the rest of your lab time engaging with the equipment to achieve all of the following missions. Once each mission is accomplished, please demonstrate it to your TA before moving to the next mission. 3.1) Make a laser larger than 4 cm diameter. Find a combination of optical equipment that achieves the greatest expansion of the laser spot size. Pay attention to how large the laser spot size is throughout the optical path by placing an index card or a piece of paper in the beam path. What components did you use and what components would you like to use if they were available? Lab 1 PHY 5341 1 Concave lens 를 사용해서 반지름을 expansion 시킬 수 있다. Con cave 렌즈를 한 개 사용할 때 보다 두개 사용했을 때 더욱더 큰 반지름을 얻을 수 있었다. 3.2) Cause the laser to bounce back and forth between two mirrors such that it bounces off of each mirror 3 times. What is the maximum many bounces can you achieve? The maximum is 4 거울의 반지름이 작아 반사의 횟수에 제한이되었다. 만약 더 큰 반지름의 거울을 사용했다면 더 많은 수의 bounces 를 얻을 수 있었을 것이다. 3.3) Measure the efficiency of the optical components. Create a configuration that allows you to quickly measure the power before and after the laser goes through a lens or bounces off of a mirror. What is the power of the laser beam when it is initially created? How much power is lost when the laser bounces off of a mirror? What could you do to make your measurements more accurate? 4) For your write up, everyone should type a 1-page lab summary of the mission he/she accomplished best. What did you do? Why did that work? What did you learn? What could you have done better? Lab 1 PHY 5341 2