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Lab 1: Fresnel Relations and Snell'S Law (2 Lab Periods)

This lab experiment examines the refraction and reflection of light at a planar dielectric interface. Students will use a polarized laser and divided circle spectrometer to measure the angles of incident and refracted beams as they pass through and reflect off a semicircular piece of plexiglass. This will allow them to verify Snell's law, find the critical angle for total internal reflection to determine the plexiglass index of refraction, locate Brewster's angle to also determine the index of refraction, and measure reflected power versus angle to compare to Fresnel equations. Safety precautions are outlined to avoid looking into the laser beam.

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Akash Gupta
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45 views3 pages

Lab 1: Fresnel Relations and Snell'S Law (2 Lab Periods)

This lab experiment examines the refraction and reflection of light at a planar dielectric interface. Students will use a polarized laser and divided circle spectrometer to measure the angles of incident and refracted beams as they pass through and reflect off a semicircular piece of plexiglass. This will allow them to verify Snell's law, find the critical angle for total internal reflection to determine the plexiglass index of refraction, locate Brewster's angle to also determine the index of refraction, and measure reflected power versus angle to compare to Fresnel equations. Safety precautions are outlined to avoid looking into the laser beam.

Uploaded by

Akash Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lab 1:

FRESNEL RELATIONS and SNELL’S LAW (2 Lab Periods)


Objective Examine the refraction and reflection of light at a planar dielectric interface.

References Hecht, sections 4.4, 4.6, 4.7, 8.6

(A) Basic Equations

1. Fresnel’s Equations

(1.1)

(1.2)

where R are reflection coefficients (i.e., reflection amplitudes squared), subscripts ⊥ and || denote
polarization directions with respect to the plane defined by the propagation direction and the di-
rection normal to the interface, and θi and θt are the angles the incoming and the transmitted
beams make with the interface normal.

2. Snell's Law

(1.3)

where n are refraction indices.

3. Critical angle for total internal reflection

(1.4)

4. Brewster’s Angle (Polarization Angle)

(1.5)

(B) Equipment

Polarized laser, divided circle spectrometer, semicircular piece of plexiglass, silicon photodiode
detector, and power meter.
33-353 — Intermediate Optics Lab 1 — Fall 2010

(C) LAB SAFETY: Do not look into the Laser beam. Eye injury and blindness
may result.

FOR THIS EXPERIMENT, WITH THE LASER BEAM GOING THROUGH THE SPEC-
TROMETER, DON’T LOOK INTO THE TELESCOPE OF THE SPECTROMETER.

(D) Procedure

In this experiment, we will be using a divided-circle spectrometer to measure angles between


various laser beams. This instrument, shown below, is normally used with a light source illumi-
nating the slit, a grating or prism resting on the table, and with the user looking through the eye-
piece. However, for this experiment we'll use it in a different mode – with a laser beam going
through the slit and collimator, reflecting/refracting off of a piece of plexiglass on the table, and
then passing through the telescope. NEVER LOOK AT THE BEAM THROUGH THE TELE-
SCOPE! Rather, you simply want to measure the angle of the beam by aligning the telescope so
that the beam passes centrally through it. For this purpose, it is convenient to remove the eye-
piece from the telescope, and have the beam hit a piece of tape or paper (with a central mark on
it) to indicate its position. For measurements of intensities, this piece of paper can have a slit
made in it to allow the beam to pass through it into the detector.

Figure 1.1: Divided-circle spectrometer

– 1.2 –
33-353 — Intermediate Optics Lab 1 — Fall 2010

(E) Assignments

a. Snell’s Law

Direct the laser beam onto the planar surface of the plexiglass and note the refracted beam. Use
the angular scale built into the spectrometer base to measure the angles of the incident and re-
fracted rays.

Technical hints: use the surface reflection off the plexiglass to direct the Laser beam straight
back onto itself. This allows you to align the laser angle vertically and to determine the zero in-
cidence angle of the spectrometer table. Also, you can remove the plexiglass to find the zero of
the refracted ray angle.

Make a plot of the appropriate quantities to verify Snell’s Law.

b. Total Internal Reflection.

Find the critical angle for total internal reflection. Measure this angle, and determine the index of
refraction of the plexiglass from the result.

c. Brewster’s Angle.

Turn the plexiglass to study external reflections. Find Brewster's angle, the angle for which there
is no reflected beam for light polarized in the plane of reflection.

Technical hint: The laser you are using is polarized, but you must find the plane of polarization.
This can be done by (a) using a polarizing sheet with known plane of polarization, and/or (b) lo-
cating the zero of intensity corresponding to Brewster's angle, since this zero only occurs for the
correct polarization.

Measure Brewster's angle and use it to determine the index of refraction of the plexiglass.

Compare your results for the index of refraction from Parts A, B, and C.

d. Fresnel Equations.

Use the detector and DVM to measure the intensity of the reflected beam.

Plot reflected power versus angle for each polarization and compare to theory.

Technical hint: The detector may have a zero offset (that is, the power meter has a nonzero read-
ing even with zero illumination of the detector). Take care to zero that offset using the adjust-
ment on the power meter.

– 1.3 –

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