OPTICS LABORATORY
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2016/2017
- Teacher
- ROBERTO CALABRESE
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- FIS/01
Training objectives
- The goal of the course is the acquisition of the ability to perform elementary optics experiments, using lasers and other optics instrumentation.
Prerequisites
- Knowledge of elementary algebra, trigonometry and data analysis.
Course programme
- The course is organized in frontal lectures (24 hours) and laboratory experiments (36 hours). In the following the course’s topics are reported.
Light as electromagnetic wave. Geometrical optics. Lenses. The laws of reflection and refraction. Total internal reflection . Diffraction. Interference. Polarization. Coherence. Laboratory experiments about the above subjects.
Some aspects of the quantum nature of light. Photons. Lasers: working principles and applications. Magneto-optics traps and Bose-Einstein Condensation. Didactic methods
- The course is organized as follows:
-frontal lectures on all the course’s topics (24 hours);
-laboratory experiments in the Optics laboratory (36 hours). The students will be grouped (typically 3 students per group) to perform the experiments. At the end of the experiment each group has to prepare a report which describe goals, methodology and experimental setup, data taken and related analysis. Learning assessment procedures
- The examination consists in an oral test:
-the course subjects will be discussed, to verify the ability of linking different topics discussed during the lectures;
-the reports about the laboratory experiments will be discussed, to verify the understanding of experimental problems and to verify at which level the learning objectives previously described have been acquired, in particular the ability to perform elementary optics experiments.
Final evaluation will be based on the examination and on the laboratory work. Reference texts
- Lecture notes.
Specific topics can be further developed in the following text: Hecht 'Optics' Addison Wesley
