Related papers: Optics undergraduate experiments using smart (and …
Science students must deal with the errors inherent to all physical measurements and be conscious of the necessity to express their as a best estimate and a range of uncertainty. Errors are routinely classified as statistical or systematic.…
We discuss a novel application of matter wave interferometry to characterize the scalar optical polarizability of molecules at 532 nm. The interferometer presented here consists of two material absorptive gratings and one central optical…
Light Polarization has many technological applications and its discovery was crucial to reveal the transverse nature of the electromagnetic waves. However, despite its fundamental and practical importance, in high school this property of…
We introduce some new experiments where light diffraction is demonstrated with simple elements: white light diffraction with a coin, construction of a diffractive lens by holography, diffraction properties in digital discs and an…
The aim of this work is to prove that it is possible to realise an optical system which produces as output a light intensity that can be expressed in the same mathematical form of the spin glass Hamiltonian. The optical system under study…
We investigate the effects of the relativistic movement of an optical medium on the conditions of constructive and destructive interference, reflection and transmission pattern, and performance of spectroscopes. First, we consider the case…
The sensors in modern smartphones are a promising and cost-effective tool for experimentation in physics education, but many experiments face practical problems. Often the phone is inaccessible during the experiment and the data usually…
This article aims to provide a brief overview of both established and novel ellipsometry techniques, as well as their applications. Ellipsometry is an indirect optical technique in that information about the physical properties of a sample…
We created an introductory physics activity for undergrad students consisting in measuring by different methods the same physical quantity. It allows to confront students with questions of uncertainty, precision, and model versus theory.…
We firstly revisit the importance, naturalness and limitations of the so-called optical metrics for describing the propagation of light rays in the limit of geometric optics. We then exemplify their flexibility and nontriviality in some…
The versatility of optics enables the design of a wide range of elegant beam instrumentation. Multiple properties of particle beams can be precisely measured by various optical techniques, which include: direct sampling of optical radiation…
In the paper we present a low cost optical device which splits the light in the focal plane into two separate optical paths and collimates it back into a single image plane, and where a selective information processing ca be carried out.…
Oblique plane microscopy (OPM) offers 3D optically sectioned imaging with high spatial- and temporal-resolution while enabling conventional sample mounting. The technique uses a concatenation of three microscopes, two for remote focusing…
The ability to control the motion of mechanical systems through its interaction with light has opened the door to a plethora of applications in fundamental and applied physics. With experiments routinely reaching the quantum regime, the…
A sharp resonance line that appears in three-photon transitions between the $^{1}S_{0}$ and $^{3}P_{0}$ states of alkaline earth and Yb atoms is proposed as an optical frequency standard. This proposal permits the use of the even isotopes,…
The subject of optomechanics involves interactions between optical and mechanical degrees of freedom, and is currently of great interest as an enabler of fundamental investigations in quantum mechanics, as well as a platform for…
Optical forces allow manipulation of small particles and control of nanophotonic structures with light beams. Here, we describe a counter-intuitive lateral optical force acting on particles placed above a substrate, under uniform plane wave…
To make physics experiments more directly relevant to everyday life and help students realize how their smart phones or tablets can be used as sensors for scientific measurements, we designed two introductory physics experiments to measure…
The phenomenon of molecular optical activity manifests itself as the rotation of the plane of linear polarization when light passes through chiral media. Measurements of optical activity and its wavelength dependence, optical rotatory…
Optical forces - studied since the earliest days of laser physics - continue to reveal rich dynamics and enable powerful tools for manipulation of objects on micro- and nanoscales, and even individual atoms. Lateral optical forces, which…