Instructor: Daniel A. Steck
Office: 277 Willamette Phone: 346-5313 email: dsteck@uoregon.edu
Office hours: W 3:00-4:00, F 2:00-3:00, and by appointment
Course home page: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dsteck/teaching/05winter/phys424
Schedule: MWF 1:00-2:00, 318 Willamette
Course reference number: 27578 (424); 27732 (524)
Credits: 4
Prerequisites (PHYS 424): PHYS 351-2, MATH 281-2
Links: news, course notes, homework sets and keys, midterm feedback and comments.
This course will provide a broad overview of geometric optics, wave optics, and laser physics. See the tentative syllabus below for a preliminary list of topics we will cover.
Recommended Text: Saleh and Teich, Fundamentals of Photonics
Supplementary Text: Catalog from Melles Griot (provided by instructor)
There are many other excellent standard optics texts that you may find useful for this course.
You may wish to acquire some of these, or you may borrow these from the
instructor on a short-term basis:
Grades for the course will be based on homework a mid-term exam, and a final exam. The relative weights will be as follows:
Homework: this is a homework-intensive course. Homework will be assigned weekly and each assignment will be due one week after it is assigned. Homework assignments will be accepted until 5 pm on the due date without penalty. Thereafter, late homework will be accepted, but at a 25% penalty for each day it is turned in late. Partial assignments may be turned in, and only the late portion will be penalized. The relative contribution of each homework assignment will depend on its difficulty.
Mid-term exam: I would like to have an evening exam in lieu of one of the usual class periods (to reduce time pressure). This is scheduled for February 10 at 7 pm instead of class on February 18. (Exam to be held in 318 Willamette.)
Final exam: The final exam will be held Thursday, March 17, 3:15-5:15, in 318 Willamette.
Some of the homework will require access to a computer for basic calculations (in low-level languages such as C or Fortran, or any of several higher-level packages such as Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, Octave, Mathcad, etc.) and basic plotting (e.g., GNUplot, Excel, etc.). Contact the instructor as soon as possible if you do not already have access to such resources.
| Monday | Wednesday | Friday |
|---|---|---|
| 3 January Ray Optics: Fermat's Principle |
5 January Ray Optics: Matrix Formalism |
7 January Ray Optics: Resonator Stability |
| 10 January Review of Electromagnetism |
12 January Review of Electromagnetism |
14 January Wave Optics: Interference and Interferometers |
| 17 January No Class: MLK Day |
19 January Wave Optics: Paraxial Wave Equation and Gaussian Beams |
21 January Wave Optics: ABCD Law for Gaussian Beams |
| 24 January Wave Optics: Hermite-Gaussian Beams |
26 January Wave Optics: Resonator Transmission |
28 January Wave Optics: Spherical-Mirror Resonator Modes |
| 31 January Laser Physics: Overview |
2 February Laser Physics: Gain Saturation |
4 February Laser Physics: Light-Atom Interactions |
| 7 February Laser Physics: Optical Gain and Pumping Schemes |
9 February Laser Physics: Output Characteristics |
11 February Polarization Optics: Jones Vectors |
| 14 February Polarization Optics: Fresnel Relations |
16 February Polarization Optics: Thin Films |
18 February No Class: Evening Midterm Instead |
| 21 February Polarization Optics: Birefringent and Active Media |
23 February Fourier Optics: Diffraction |
25 February Fourier Optics: Image Formation |
| 28 February Optical Media: Absorption and Dispersion |
2 March Optical Media: Kramers-Kronig Relations |
4 March Optical Media: Resonant Media and Pulse Propagation |
| 7 March Statistical Optics: Coherence |
9 March Statistical Optics: Interference and Visibility |
11 March Review and Evaluation |