Lectures
Teachers
Val Zwiller (zwiller@kth.se) and Ali Elshaari (elshaari@kth.se).
Lecture schedule
check the course schedule.
Book
Please bring your book (E. Hecht, Optics) to the lectures as we will sometimes discuss material from the book
Table of contents
The table below lists the topics covered by each lecture. There are also problem classes (calculation exercises) accompanying the course.
Activity |
Content |
Lecture 1 |
Introduction: What is light?, Maxwell's equations, photons. |
Lecture 2 |
Geometrical optics, thin and thick lenses mirrors. |
Exercise 1 |
|
Lecture 3 |
Refractive index, dispersion, scattering, reflection, refraction, Fermat’s principle, total internal reflection, Goos-Hänchen shift, Fresnel’s equations, Brewster angle. |
Lecture 4 |
Optical systems: Fibers, human eye, microscope, telescope. |
Exercise 2 |
|
Lecture 5 |
Telescope, aberrations, optical tweezers, near-field optical microscope, resolution. |
Lecture 6 |
Polarization, birefringence, Stokes vectors. |
Exercise 3 |
|
Lecture 7 |
Polarisation, Stokes vectors, retarders, elasto-optic, magneto-optic and electro-optic effects, optical activity, LCD. |
Lecture 8 |
Jones vectors. Quantum entanglement, Bell measurement |
Exercise 4 |
Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session. |
Lecture 9 |
Interference, temporal and spatial coherence, double-slit experiment, Michelson interferometer. |
Lecture 10 |
Diffraction, single slit, double slit generalization to many slits, spectrometers |
Exercise 5 |
Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session. |
Lecture 11 |
Fourier optics. Fabry-Perot interferometer. |
Exercise 6 |
|
Lecture 12 |
Holography, Michelson stellar interferometer. |
Exercise 7 |
|
Lecture 13 |
Photodetectors, slow light, superluminal light, metamaterials. |
Exercise 8 |
Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session. |
Lecture 14 |
Solar energy |