Required  books:

The required text is Hecht,  OPTICS, 3rd or 4th Edition and Taylor, INTRO. TO ERROR ANALYSIS (and/or Bevington, DATA REDUCTION + ERROR ANAL. FOR PHYS. SCI.)   Both Taylor and Bevington can be any edition.  In addition you will need (ultimately) two lab notebooks, so that you have one to work in while the other is graded. Purchase the quad-ruled coop-style notebooks (brown covers) but avoid those with carbon paper. The Book Exchange and campus bookstore usually stocks these (though you may have to ask for help to find them) but Staples (check the item number via the web) has them cheaper.


Syllabus 

List of Experiments 

Schedule

Guidelines for Written Lab Reports  

Notes on Error Analysis 

Helpful Notes on Mathematica

Quick Reference Manual for LoggerPro3

University of St. Andrews (Scotland), PSST program that does ray diagrams

 

Reading Guidance:

by 25-Jan    Hecht 13.1.3, The Laser, pp. 589-597
by 1-Feb    For Homework problems,  read/review Hecht Chap 2 Wave Motion and read Hecht
                 3.2-3.3.3, Electromagnetic Waves, Energy and Momentum, Photons.   For Lab 1, read Hecht 4.3,
                 Reflection (note picture in upper right of p. 100),   4.4, 4.4.1 Refraction.
by 8-Feb  For homework and lecture, read Hecht 4.6 Electromagnetic Approach (i.e.
                 Electromagnetic waves): 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.6.3, 4.7 Total Internal Reflection, 4.7.1, and 4.10
                 on the Stokes treatment of reflection/transmission.
by 15-Feb For lecture and lab, read Hecht 5.1, 5.2, 5.2.2.2 (focus position derived by Fermat's
                 Principle.  Prob. 5.5  describes the conventional ray tracing derivation of Eq. (5.8)),
                 5.2.3 Thin Lens Equation, 5.4, 5.4.1, 5.4.3,  5.7 Optical System Introduction, 5.7.3,
                 5.7.4, 5.7.5, 5.7.7.
by 22-Feb For lecture and lab, read Hecht 5.7.1 The Eye through accomodation, 5.7.6 The
                 Camera.
by 1-Mar  For homework, lecture and lab, read Hecht 8.1, 8.1.1, 8.1.2, 8.1.3,8.1.4, 8.2, 8.2.1,
                 8.3.3, 8.5.1, 8.6, 8.6.1, {8.13.2, 8.13.3, and Table 8.5 on p. 375, on Jones vectors and
                 Jones matrices}.
by 22-Mar For homework, lecture and lab, read/review: Hecht 7, 7.1, 7.1.1-7.1.4, read Hecht: 7.3
                 all, 7.4 all, 9.4,  9.4.1.  Particularly for Lab4: read Hecht: 9 intro., 9.1, 9.4.2.
by 5-April For homework, lecture and lab, read/review Hecht {10.1, 10.1.1, 10.1.2, 10.1.3} is
                 background, {10.2, 10.2.1, 10.2.2, 10.2.3, 10.2.4 are the things you will measure in the
                 lab,  {10.2.5, 10.2.6} gives background on resolution of microscope/telescope limited by
                 diffraction.
by 12-April For homework, lecture and lab, read/review Hecht 11 on Fourier Optics - a powerful
                way to look at diffraction problems, 11.1, 11.2, 11.2.2, 11.3.3 through 3 slits.
by 19-April For lecture and lab, read/review Hecht 10.2.8 on diffraction gratings and 3.4.4 on
                atomic emissions of light.