Michelson Interferometer

& Fourier Transform Spectrometry

Physics 331
Ryan Wagner
November 3, 2014
Lab Partners
Juan Trujillo
Jason Lozo

Introduction
The Michelson Interferometer & Fourier Transform Spectrometry lab allows students to find a point (beam path length) for
each of the paths the beam travels that will cause an interference pattern to appear on the target screen. This interference
pattern is visible through the use of expensive mirrors and a beam splitter, as well as a projection screen. The beam splitter
allows the coherence length to be found and the sinusoidal light wave to be seen projected on the screen as a top view of a
3-dimensional wave.

What is the general purpose of this lab?

The general purpose of this lab is to investigate the properties of an interferometer and make observation with three
different light sources laser, sodium lamp and incandescent bulb in that order. Then the coherence length for white light
will be calculated using equation (1) below, and then the coherence length for a sodium lamp will be found. The purpose
is to see if this method for find the coherence length is a valid method to use.

The quantities that will be directly measured

The change in the adjustable mirrors position will be directly measured as the fringing and spacing changes in order
to optimize the fringe pattern.
The total traveled length by the light will also be directly measured.
The fringe position and contrasts will also be measured.

The quantities the will be derived from the measurement and their formulas
L=

()2

2pi
= 2

2
mk = = k

k=

(1)
(2)
(3)

ET = E0 eit + E0 ei(t+)
2
2
=
=
[2(l1 l2 ) cos ]

2kT ln(2)
D = 20
M c2
1

(4)
(5)
(6)

f (x) =

X
X
A0
+
Am cos(mkx) +
Bm sin(mkx)
2
m=0
m=0
Z
2
Am =
f (x) cos(mkx) dx
0
Z
2
Bm =
f (x) sin(mkx) dx
0

(7)

(8)
(9)

The wave number will be derived using the equation (2) or (3)
The amplitude can be calculated using equation (4)
The value of will also be deriving using equation (5)
the value of D will be found using equation (6)

Setup & Procedure

1. First the laser path was aligned, to make sure it was at a height of 6 across the length of the table, using the
alignment stands provided. Each alignment board has a horizontal line at 6 from the table.
2. The Beam splitter was then inserted into the path of the laser and the lasers two beams were blocked by the alignment
boards. The beam splitter was then locked into place.
3. The fixed mirror was then placed 20 cm from the beam splitter across from the target screen which was already in
place. once the beam was seen on the target screen, near the center, the mirror was locked in place.
4. The movable mirror was then put into place across from the laser and beam splitter. The mirror was set at an initial
setting of 12.85 mm and placed a distance of 20 cm away from the beam splitter and was locked in place.
5. The two mirrors where then remeasured to make sure they where each the same distance from the beam splitter (20
cm)
6. The microscope objective was then placed in the path of the laser (between the laser and the beam splitter) to allow
the waves to be visible on the screen.
7. The lights were then turned off and the fixed mirror was adjusted to allow the outer fringes to be visible on the screen
so the parallelism between then was obvious. The point that the lines are parallel was said to be the convergence
length of the laser.
8. The adjustable mirror was then moved until the visible lines were parallel, the micrometer possition was then noted
9. The laser was then swapped out for the sodium lamp and the microscope objective was swapped out for an iris to
allow more directed light to pass through the beam splitter.
10. The setting of the micrometer were noted when we found the sharpest fringe pattern and the measurement on the
micrometer was recorded
11. The sodium lamp was swapped for the white light lamp set about 25 cm from the beam splitter
12. A camera lens was placed between the beam splitter and the screen
13. A green filter was then set between the camera lens and the beam splitter
14. The Fringing was adjusted by moving the movable mirror in and out to make it as defined as possible and the
measurement on the micrometer was noted
15. The green filter was then removed to allow the white light to hit the target
16. The movable mirror was adjusted til the white light fringing was visible and the micrometer position was noted
The basic layout can be seen in figure 1

Figure 1: Setup Diagram

Observations
Observations made for each of the light sources and the fringes that where noticed appear on the screen as we adjusted the
mirrors to find the coherence length.
Laser As the movable mirror was adjusted it was noticed that the fringes where originally curved to the one side and
as the mirror was moved out by a few mm the fringes became parallel and as we continued to move the mirror the fringes
began to curve in the opposite direction. The mirror was then moved to the extreme values of the micrometer and viewed
that the fringes would change directions from being curved one way to the other and back again. The mirror was then
moved back until the lines were parallel which was noticed to be the point where the coherence length had been reached.
Sodium Lamp Following a similar procedure with the the sodium lamp as we did with the laser, the fringes seemed
to get blurry and more defined as we moved the mirror out and back in. It was noticed that the most defined fringes was
where the coherence length was reached.
White Light The white light had such a small coherence length that when we adjusted it to find the fringes it only
took a small adjustment for the fringes to disappear. The fringes that that where visible where rainbow colors due to the
varied wavelength of each of the colors.

Data and Graphs

The following Tables are the values that we obtained throughout this experiment:

Node
1
2
3
4
5
6

Nodes > ZPD (mm)

12.985
13.285
13.579
13.863
14.162
14.451

Table 1: Nodes Near the Zero Point Distance (ZPD)

Nodes < ZPD (mm) uncertainty(mm)
12.699
0.001
12.41
0.001
12.126
0.001
11.846
0.001
11.552
0.001
11.248
0.001

Node
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Voltage
0.27
0.43
0.61
0.51
0.61
0.76
1.30
2.30
2.62
2.04
1.43
0.82
0.68
0.74
0.46
0.40

uncertainty
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.03

Table 2: Nodes Voltage & Mirror Position

Mirror Position Uncertainty
10.798
0.001
11.142
0.001
11.422
0.001
11.632
0.001
11.712
0.001
11.989
0.001
12.291
0.001
12.588
0.001
12.850
0.001
13.104
0.001
13.464
0.001
13.745
0.001
14.066
0.001
14.307
0.001
14.624
0.001
14.920
0.001

The following graphs were plotted from the data obtained in the tables above:

Figure 2: Volts vs Mirror Position

Figure 3: Volts vs Mirror Position

Data Analysis
The data analysis will be separated into three sections due to the fact that three different light sources had been used in this
lab. Each light source must then be therefore evaluated individually.

Laser
With the laser the Zero Point Difference (zpd) was found as close as was possible with human eyes. Using the reading on
the micrometer of 12.85mm and the equation L = cdf , where L is the length of coherence, c is the speed of light 108 m
s
and df is the light packets frequency spread, we were able to calculate the coherence lenth of the laser. The lab using the
values given for the FWHM of the lasers gaussian wave of 500MHz where they are all equally spaced from each other by
687MHz. The value of df was then calculated using the spread of two lines giving df = 1187M Hz.
After the value of df had been found the coherence length was calculated to be (252mm. The intensity of the outer
fringes is roughly half of the lasers ZPD or about 126mm which means the micrometer distance would need to change by
about 63mm which is well outside the range we can do with the given equipment.

White Light
The white light allowed the ZPD to be found, since the coherence distance was so narrow, and it was located when the
micrometer was at (12.8500 .001)mm on the black dial. To calculate the coherence length of white light the equation
L = 2 = 2(LR LL ) was used, where the sub L and R are the distance on the micrometer when the light fringes
disappear on both the lower and upper bounds. The values measured where the fringes end are 12.853 0.001)mm and
12.846 0.001)mm, giving a difference, or line width, of 700nm. The coherence length was then calculated, using
equation (1) and a mean wavelength of 550nm, to be 432nm which comparing it to the textbook value of 900nm we find
that our error percentage is roughly 41.66%. Using a value calculated by Juan Trujillo of 1008nm and the value obtain
by using the given values of 550nm for and 300nm for we get the value of 1008.33nm which is only an error of
0.032727% which is an acceptable error. The main errors where simply in the calculation of the equations and possible
eye error, viewing when the fringes ended and began was read by human eyes.

Sodium Lamp
The sodium lamp also had a ZPD of 12.850mm, not the 12.720mm originally thought. The fact that White light has a
shorter coherence length than the sodium lamp offered a much narrower field to find the ZPD for the sodium light.
In figure 3 the spacing of the wave nodes vs the ZPD offset was plotted. The upper line was measuring where the
distance (in mm) was greater than the ZPD. The Lower line was where the measurements were less than ZPD. A node
separation was found by using the average of both slopes and was found to be (0.291 0.003)mm.
The coherence length was then calculated using L = 2 to be(0.582 0.006)mm. By using a ruler and figure 2 the
value for the FWHM was measured and found to be 2.350mm. Using the equation (6), along with the values from the
lab handout, the value of (17.18 0.06)cm1 was calculated. Comparison to the given value of 17.192cm1 gives an
uncertainty of 0.0698% which is within an acceptable error percentage.

Summary
The object of this lab was to find the coherence length of the sodium lamp and to compare it to the value given in the lab.
As shown the value found was within an acceptable margin of error and the method used is therefore a valid method to
find the coherence length.