Light from a modulated He-Ne laser is detected at the beginning and end of a measured path.

The
AC signals from photodetectors at these two points are compared on an oscilloscope to measure
the phase difference and from that the velocity of the light.

1. Frequency must be high to give a measurable separation. 1.4 MHz was used by W95 group. A
triangle wave made reading the wave position easier.

2. Mirror shake was a problem. Hopefully the use of optical tables and mounts will help with that.

3. The signal from one photocell would bleed into the other, making the signal indistinct. The W95
group used the signal generator as a standard and measured the two photocells against that standard
and took the difference.

4. The scope is difficult to read because of vibrations and a fuzzy signal.

5. Internal delays of the triggering of the oscilloscope? caused the line of best fit of the data to not
cross zero. To overcome this problem, the slope of the data at different distances with respect to
time was taken to get the speed of light.
The most elegant methods for speed of light measurements generally involve the use of a well
collimated beam of light. Collimated light consists of parallel rays which do not decrease intensity
with distance, because they do not spread out. Rays from conventional sources (lightbulb) are
difficult to collimate. On the other hand, a laser emits a beam that is already fairly well collimated
and can be collimated even further using very simple optics. Therefore, a laser is the preferred
choice for the light source in a speed of light measurement.
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission
of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation".

In this experiment the time is measured for a pulse of light to travel a certain distance. With a
continuous beam, you would not know when to start and stop timing, so the light has to be
pulsed. Michelson and Fizeau pulsed their light beams using choppers or rotating mirrors. These
are cumbersome to set up; in addition, electronically driven external modulators, or Pockel cells,
are often used, but they are very expensive. Instead we will use a modulated laser: a laser in
which the light itself is modulated as it is created. Modulation is the adding of information to a
carrier. Laser light can be amplitude modulated by varying its brightness. A modulated laser is
used to generate multiple light pulses, and some will be allowed to travel further than others. The
amount of time between the arrival of the pulses, along with the length difference, will allow us to
determine the speed of the pulses.

A function generator is used to modulate the light from the laser at 3 MHz. The laser light is then reflected from a
mirror and focused onto a light receiver. An oscilloscope is used to observe the modulated light, and the phase
difference of the signal is noted as the baseline value for phase.
Subsequently, the mirror is moved back, increasing the distance that the light travels. Since it takes more time for
the light to travel from the laser to the sensor, the phase difference of the signal on the oscilloscope increases. The
phase difference at each of successive mirror position is recorded and compared to the baseline value. The mirror is
moved back several more times to get a reasonable number of data points. For each mirror position, the additional
path length is graphed versus the phase difference.

In this experiment, you will measure the speed of light using a laser modulated at a very high frequency and an
oscilloscope. You will measure the time, , that elapses while the light signal travels a known distance, , and you will
calculate the speed of light, which is defined as

. The light signal, originating at the laser, will travel to the mirror and back to the light receiver. You will vary by moving
the mirror and measuring the corresponding effect on with the oscilloscope. It is not necessary (or practical) to measure
the actual elapsed time, since we are only interested in how changes as varies. Therefore, you will actually measure an
elapsed time relative to an arbitrary (but constant) baseline. This elapsed time can be expressed mathematically as:
(equation 1) where tk is an unknown constant. For the same reason, you can also measure instead of where (equation 2)
The equation of a line fitted to a plot of vs. is (equation 3) where c represents the slope of the line. The combinations of
equations 1, 2, and 3 yields (equation 4) where K is another arbitrary constant. In equation 4, it is evident that the slope,
c, equals , which is the speed of light.
Procedure 1. Adjust the alignments of the laser and mirror and the positions of the lens and receiver to maximize the
signal. (Adjust the receiver up, down, left and right on the carrier, but do not change the position of the carrier on the
bench.) 2. On the oscilloscope, adjust the scale and vertical position of the signal to maximize the signal trace. Do not
change the horizontal position of the trace. 3. Record the position of the mirror (relative to its initial position) and the
phase of the signal in Table 1a. If your oscilloscope is equipped with cursors, use them to measure the phase. Otherwise,
estimate the phase to 1/2 of the smallest division on the time scale. 4. Move the mirror back to the next mark and
repeat steps 1 through 4.

Analysis Plot vs. . (Remember that is two times the mirror position. The slope of the best-fit line is the speed of light.
Note: You can plot your data and obtain the best-fit line using DataStudio. For instructions, see Appendix B of this
manual.