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. Hecht 1,3:1-3, 3:6.

Lecture 2

Geometrical optics, thin and thick lenses mirrors.

Hecht 5:1-5, 6:1.¶ Exercise 1

Lecture 3

Refractive index, dispersion, scattering, reflection, refraction, Fermat’s principle, total internal reflection, Goos-Hänchen shift, Fresnel’s equations, Brewster angle.

Hecht 3:5, 4:1-7.¶ Lecture 4

Optical systems: Fibers, human eye, microscope, telescope.

Hecht 5:6-7.¶ Exercise 2

Lecture 5

Telescope, aberrations, optical tweezers, near-field optical microscope, resolution.

Hecht 5:7-8, 6:3, 10:2.6.¶ Lecture 6

Polarization, birefringence, Stokes vectors.

Hecht 8:1-6, 8:13.¶ ¶ Exercise 3

Lecture 7

Polarisation, Stokes vectors, retarders, elasto-optic, magneto-optic and electro-optic effects, optical activity, LCD.

Hecht 8:7, 8:10-13.¶ 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. Hecht 9:1-4

Lecture 10

Diffraction, single slit, double slit generalization to many slits, spectrometers 10:1-2

Exercise 5

Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session.

Lecture 11

Fourier optics. Hecht 10:2, 11:1-3.¶ Fabry-Perot interferometer. Hecht 9:6

Exercise 6

Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session.¶ Lecture 12¶ Holography, Michelson stellar interferometer.¶ Hecht 13:3, 12:5¶ Exercise 7¶ Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session. Lecture 12¶

Holography, Michelson stellar interferometer.¶

Exercise 7¶

Lecture 13

Photodetectors, slow light, superluminal light, metamaterials.

Hecht 7:2.2, 7:4 (p. 329-332), 3:5¶ Exercise 8

Questions are posted on Canvas before the session. In addition to homework for the next session.

Lecture 14

Solar energy