Optics Assignment 1

Due: 30/Nov/2013 14:00

1.

Show that the mirror formula is

1 1 1
+ =

where the focal length = /2.

The focal length is positive for concave and negative for convex; object and
image on the left side are positive, on the right side are negative.

2.

(a) Show that the mirror formula

1 1 1
+ = can be written as
so si f

si so f ( so f ) and hence the lateral magnification given by m =

=

s
y'
= i
y
so

(lateral magnification, spherical mirror) can be expressed as

=
m f / ( f so ) .
(b) A concave spherical mirror has focal length 14.9cm. What is the nonzero
distance of the object from the mirror vertex if the image has the same
height as the object? Express your answer with the appropriate units.
(c) In part (b) is the image erect or inverted?
(d) A convex spherical mirror has focal length -8.00cm. What is the nonzero
distance of the object from the mirror vertex if the height of the image is
one-half the height of the object? Express your answer with the appropriate
units.
3.

A guy named Joe, who is 1.6 meters tall, enters a room in which someone has
placed a large convex mirror with radius of curvature R equal to 30 meters. The
mirror has been cut in half, so that the axis of the mirror is at ground level. As
Joe enters the room, he is 5 meters in front of the mirror, but he is looking the
other way, so he fails to see it. When he turns around, he is startled by his own
image in the mirror.

(a) How far away does the image appear to Joe? Express your answer in meters,
to three significant figures or as a fraction.
(b) What is the image height yim that Joe sees in the mirror? Express your
answer in meters, to three significant figures or as a fraction.
(c) Joe is so startled by his image that he falls forward. (Assume that his feet
stay at the same position.) Now what is the length (i.e., the distance from
head to toe) of Joe's image? Express your answer in meters, to three
significant figures or as a fraction.

4.

A person is lying on a diving board 3.25m above the surface of the water in a
swimming pool. The person looks at a penny that is on the bottom of the pool
directly below her. The penny appears to the person to be a distance of 6.50m
from her. What is the depth of the water at this point? Express your answer with
the appropriate units.

5.

(a) The left end of a long glass rod 5.00 cm in diameter has a convex
hemispherical surface 2.50cm in radius. The refractive index of the glass is
1.60. The glass rod is immersed in oil (n=1.45). An object placed to the left

of the rod on the rod's axis is to be imaged 1.30m inside the rod. How far
from the left end of the rod must the object be located to form the image?
(b) The left end of a long glass rod 8.20cm in diameter, with an index of
refraction 1.63, is ground and polished to a convex hemispherical surface
with a radius of 4.10cm. An object in the form of an arrow 1.53mm tall, at
right angles to the axis of the rod, is located on the axis 23.5cm to the left of
the vertex of the convex surface.
(i) Find the position of the image of the arrow formed by paraxial rays
incident on the convex surface.
(ii) Find the height of the image of the arrow formed by paraxial rays
incident on the convex surface.
(iii) Is the image erect or inverted?
(c) The left end of a long glass rod 8.00cm in diameter, with an index of
refraction 1.60, is ground to a concave hemispherical surface with radius
4.00cm. An object in the form of an arrow 1.50mm tall, at right angles to
the axis of the rod, is located on the axis 24.0cm to the left of the vertex of
the concave surface.
(i) Find the position of the image of the arrow formed by paraxial rays
incident on the concave surface.
(ii) Find the height of the image of the arrow formed by paraxial rays
incident on the concave surface.
(iii) Is the image erect or inverted?
(d) The left end of a long glass rod 8.00cm in diameter, with an index of
refraction 1.60, is ground to a concave hemispherical surface with radius
4.00cm. The glass rod is immersed in a liquid. An object 14.0cm from the
vertex of the left end of the rod and on its axis is imaged at a point 9.00cm
from the vertex inside the liquid. What is the index of refraction of the
liquid?
6.

A "biconvex" lens is one in which both surfaces of the lens bulge outwards.
Suppose you had a biconvex lens with radii of curvature with magnitudes of

R1 = 10 cm and R2 = 15 cm . The lens is made of glass with index of refraction

nglass = 1.5 . We will employ the convention that R1 refers to the radius of

curvature of the surface through which light will enter the lens, and R2 refers to
the radius of curvature of the surface from which light will exit the lens.
(a) Is this lens converging or diverging?
(b) What is the focal length f of this lens in air (index of refraction for air is
nair = 1 )? Express your answer in centimeters to two significant figures or as
a fraction.
(c) What is the focal length of the lens if it is immersed in water ( nwater = 1.3 )?
Express your answer in centimeters to two significant figures or as a
fraction.
7.

A convex spherical mirror with a focal length of magnitude 24.0cm is placed

22.0cm to the left of a plane mirror. An object 0.250cm tall is placed midway
between the surface of the plane mirror and the vertex of the spherical mirror.
The spherical mirror forms multiple images of the object.
(a) Where are the two images of the object formed by the spherical mirror that
are closest to the spherical mirror?
(b) How tall is each image?

8.

A radio transmitting station operating at a frequency of 120MHz has two

identical antennas that radiate in phase. Antenna B is 9.05m to the right of
antenna A. Consider point P between the antennas and along the line connecting
them, a horizontal distance x to the right of antenna A. For what values of will
constructive interference occur at point P?

9.

Two slits spaced 0.300mm apart are placed 0.630m from a screen and
illuminated by coherent light with a wavelength of 660nm. The intensity at the
center of the central maximum ( = 0o ) is I 0 .
(a) What is the distance on the screen from the center of the central maximum
to the first minimum?
(b) What is the distance on the screen from the center of the central maximum
to the point where the intensity has fallen to I 0 / 2 ?

10. A layer of synthetic diamond is grown on a quartz substrate inside a vacuum

chamber. The refractive indices of the substrate and the diamond layer are
ns = 1.54 and nd = 2.42 , respectively. A laser beam with wavelength 0 = 633 nm
is used to measure the thickness of the layer by illuminating it through the
substrate and observing the resulting interference on a screen. Initially, when the

growth process is started, the intensity of the laser light at the center of the screen
is close to zero. As the layer of diamond grows, the intensity of light on the
screen first increases and then decreases again to zero, at which point the growth
process is stopped. What is the final thickness t of the diamond layer?

11. For solving two-source interference problems, there exists a standard set of
equations that give the conditions for constructive and destructive interference.
These equations are usually derived in the context of Young's double slit
experiment, though they may actually be applied to a large number of other
situations. The underlying assumptions upon which these equations are based are
that two sources of coherent, nearly monochromatic light are available, and that
their interference pattern is observed at a distance very large in comparison to the
separation of the sources. Monochromatic means that the wavelengths of the
waves, which determine color for visible light, are nearly identical. Coherent
means that the waves are in phase when they leave the two sources. In Young's
experiment, these two sources corresponded to the two slits (hence such
phenomena are often called two-slit interference). Under these assumptions, the
conditions for constructive and destructive interference are as follows:
For constructive interference: d sin = m

For destructive interference: d sin=

(m =

( m + 1/ 2 )

0, 1, 2,...)

(m =

0, 1, 2,...) ,

where d is the separation between the two sources, is the wavelength of the
light, m is an arbitrary integer, and is the angle between a line perpendicular to
the line segment connecting the sources and the line from the midpoint of that
segment to the point where the interference is being observed. These equations

are often spoken of in terms of visible light, but they are, in fact, valid for any
sort of waves, as long as the two sources fit the other criteria given.

(a) Which of the following scenarios fits all of the criteria for the two-source
interference equations to be valid?
A. An observer is standing far away from two red LED signal lights.
B. Light from an incandescent bulb shines onto a screen with a single slit;
then the light shines onto a screen with two slits in it and the light from
the two slits finally shines onto a far-away screen.
C. An observer stands on a road far away from two neighboring radio
towers for different radio stations.
D. Light from an incandescent bulb shines onto a screen with a single slit;
then the light shines onto a screen with two slits in it and the light from
the two slits finally shines onto a nearby screen.
E. An observer stands on a road that runs five kilometers away from the
two synchronized transmitting towers for a radio station.
(b) Which of the following statements explain why the two-source interference
equations are not valid for an observer far away from two red LED signal
lights?
A. not monochromatic sources
B. incoherent sources
C. observed from a distance similar to or smaller than the separation
between the sources
(c) Why are the two-source interference equations not valid for an observer on
a road far away from two neighboring radio towers for different radio
stations?
A. sources emit at different frequencies (i.e., not monochromatic sources.
B. incoherent sources

C.

observed from a distance similar to or smaller than the separation

between the sources

(d) Why are the two-source interference equations not valid for light from an
incandescent bulb that shines onto a screen with a single slit, and then the
light shines onto a screen with two slits in it and the light from the two slits
finally shines onto a nearby screen?
A. not monochromatic sources
B. incoherent sources
C. observed from a distance similar to or smaller than the separation
between the sources
(e) Consider a road that runs parallel to the line connecting a pair of radio
towers that transmit the same station (assume that their transmissions are
synchronized), which has an AM frequency of 1000 kHz. If the road is 5 km
from the towers and the towers are separated by 400 m, find the angle to
the first point of minimum signal (m = 0). Hint: A frequency of kilohertz
corresponds to a wavelength of meters for radio waves. Express your
answer in radians, to two significant figures.
(f)

If the angle in the two-source interference equations is small, then using

small-angle approximations yields the equation ym = R

( m + 1/ 2 ) , where

d
R is the distance from the sources to the points where they are being
detected (in Young's experiment the screen, in this example the road), and
ym is the distance from the central maximum to the minimum of order m .
Use this equation to find the distance from the central maximum to the
minimum in the previous part. Express your answer in meters to two
significant figures.

12. (a) Find 0 and in eq. (17b) of the lecture notes in terms of 0 , 0 , ,
and .
(b) Hence prove the Maluss law:

= 0 cos 2
where 0 is the intensity of the polarized light beam just before entering the
polarizer, I is the intensity of the transmitted light beam immediately after
passing through the polarizer, and is the angular difference between the
polarization angle of the incident beam and the transmission axis of the

polarizer.
(c) Prove eq.(17c) of the lecture notes.
13. A beam of unpolarized light of intensity I 0 passes through a series of ideal
polarizing filters with their polarizing directions turned to various angles as
shown in the figure.

(a) What is the light intensity (in terms of I 0 ) at points A, B, and C?

(b) If we remove the middle filter, what will be the light intensity at point C?
14. A beam of light traveling horizontally is made of an unpolarized component with
intensity I 0 and a polarized component with intensity I p . The plane of
polarization of the polarized component is oriented at an angle of with respect
to the vertical. The following data gives the intensity measured through a
polarizer with an orientation of with respect to the vertical:

(a) What is the orientation of the polarized component? (That is, what is the
angle ?)
(b) What is the value of I 0 ?
(c) What is the value of I p ?

15. A certain birefringent material has indexes of refraction n1 and n2 for the two
perpendicular components of linearly polarized light passing through it. The
corresponding wavelengths are 1 = 0 / n1 and 0 / n2 , where 0 is the wavelength
in vacuum. If the crystal is to function as a quarter-wave plate, the number of
wavelengths of each component within the material must differ by 1/ 4 .
(a) Find the minimum thickness for a quarter-wave plate. Assume that n1 > n2 .
Express your answer in terms of variables 0 , n1 and n2 .
(b) Find the minimum thickness of a quarter-wave plate made of siderite

( FeO CO2 )

if the indexes of refraction are n1 = 1.875 and n2 = 1.635 and the

wavelength in vacuum is 0 = 589 nm .