IU Physics P460, Physical Optics, Spring 2006
List of Labs
weekly lab activities

Click on the number of the week to get instructions for the lab of the week.


Week DatesActivity
2 Jan 23 refraction
3 Jan 31 imaging with a simple lens, focal length
4 Feb 7 test of Fresnel equations
5 Feb 14 spherical aberration
6 Feb 21 optical instruments
7 Feb 28 linear polarization
8 Mar 7 circular polarization
Mar 14 spring break
9 Mar 21 exploration of interference phenomena
10 Mar 28 two-slit interference (Young's experiment)
11 Apr 4 see note below
12 Apr 11 see note below
13 Apr 18 diffraction
14 Apr 25 see note below
.. May 4 Final exam (Wednesday 5:00 pm)

note: during the final four weeks we form teams of two and tackle four of the experiments listed below (click the name to get (.pdf) lab instructions):
Experiment
Abbe refractometer
Spectroscopy using a USB2000 Spectrometer
Debye-Sears effect
Michelson interferometer


there are two more optics experiments, which are part of the Advanced Lab (P451). In principle, they could also be tackled by you, but since they are more work-intensive, they need a special arrangement
Experiment
Fabry-Perot etalon
Faraday effect

Hans-Otto Meyer Last modified: 4/1/2006