Bangabasi College Kolkata NPTEL Local Chapter

Problems on Optics

1. An electromagnetic plane wave with λ = 1 mm is normally incident on a screen with two slits with spacing d
= 3 mm.
a. How many maxima will be seen, at what angles to the normal?
b. Also solve the same problem by considering the situation where the wave is incident at 30◦ to the normal.

2. Two radio antennas separated by a distance d = 10 m emit the same signal at frequency ν with phase
difference φ. Determine the values of ν and φ so that the radiation intensity is maximum in one direction along
the line joining the two antennas while it is minimum along exactly the opposite direction. How do the maxima
and minima shift of φ is reduced to half the earlier value?

3. A lens of diameter 5.0 cm and focal length 20 cm is cut into two identical halves. A layer 1 mm in thickness
is cut from each half and the two lenses are joined again. The lens is illuminated by a point source located at the
focus and a fringe pattern is observed on a screen 50 cm away. What is the fringe spacing and the maximum
number of fringes that will be observed?

4. Two coherent monochromatic point sources are separated by a small distance, find the shape of the fringes
observed on the screen when,
a) the screen is at one side of the sources and normal to the screen is along the line joining the two sources and
b) when the normal to the screen is perpendicular to the line joining the sources.

5. The radiation from two very distant sources A and B is measured by the two antennas 1 and 2 separated by a
distance‘d’. The antennas operate at a wavelength λ. The antennas produce voltage outputs V1 and V2 which
have the same phase and amplitude as the electric field E1 and E2 incident on the respective antennas. The
voltages from the two antennas are combined V= V1 + V2 and applied to a resistance. The average power P
dissipated across the resistance is measured. In this problem you can assume that the angle 2θ ≪ 1 (in radians),
which the sources subtend at the midpoint of the line joining the two antennas.
a. What is the minimum value of d (separation between the two antennas) at which P = 0?
b. Consider a situation when an extra phase φ is introduced in V1 before the signals are combined. For what
value of φ is P independent of d?

6. Find the condition for a dark fringe at any arbitrary P on the screen placed perpendicularly at a distance D
from a source in Lloyds mirror arrangement. Also find the number of fringes observed on the screen. Assume
source wavelength to be λ, and that it is at a distance r from the mirror edge at a tilt angle θ.

7. Starting from a central dark fringe, the eighth successive bright and dark fringes are observed at the center
when one of the mirrors of a Michelson interferometer is moved 2.2 µm. Determine the wavelength of the light
which is being used. (Ans. 5.5 Angstroms)

8. A Sodium lamp emits light at two neighboring wavelengths 5890A and 5896A. A Michelson interferometer
is adjusted so that the fringes are in concordance. One of the mirrors is moved a distance ∆d so that the fringes
become discordant and concordant again. For what displacement ∆d are the fringes most discordant i.e. the
fringe pattern becomes the faintest, and for what ∆d does it become concordant again?
9. A Michelson interferometer illuminated by sodium light is adjusted so that the fringes are concordant with a
central dark fringe. What is the angular radius of the first dark fringe if the order of the central fringe is m = 100
and m = 1000? What happens if a Michelson interferometer is illuminated by white light? Also consider the
situation where d = 0 i.e. the two arms have the same length.

10. Newton’s rings are observed by placing a plano-convex lens of radius of curvature 60 cm on top of a glass
plate (both are having the same refractive index) with Sodium light (λ = 600 nm). Find the radius of the fourth
bright ring. (Ans. 1.2 mm)

11. If the air film between the lens and the glass plate in the above problem is filled with a transparent liquid of
refractive index 1.28, what will be the radius of the fifth bright ring? (Ans. 1.125 mm)

12. If the air film in the problem same is filled with Benzene and the sixth dark ring has radius 1.2 mm, find out
refractive index of Benzene. What will be radius of the fourteenth bright ring if wavelength of the light is
changed to λ = 504.2 nm? (Ans. 1.5, 1.65mm)

13. In the Newton’s ring problem, suppose the refractive index of the material of the plano-convex lens is 1.48
and that of the lower glass plate is 1.52. What difference one would observe in the Newton’s rings in this case
compared to that when both have same refractive index of 1.50?

14. A thin coat of a transparent material of refractive index 1.4 is applied on one surface of a plane glass plate
(refractive index 1.5) to reduce the reflection of orange light, λ = 616 nm. What should be the minimum
thickness of this coat if the light rays are incident normally onto the glass plate and a coat of thickness less than
0.5 µm is almost impossible to apply. (Ans. 0.55µm)

15. Consider a situation where Young’s double slit experiment is performed using light of wavelength 550 nm
and d = 1 m. Calculate the visibility assuming a source of angular width 1′ and 1◦ . Plot I(θ) for both these cases.

16. A small aperture of diameter 0.1 mm at a distance of 1m is used to illuminate two slits with light of
wavelength λ = 550 nm. The slit separation is d = 1 mm. What is the fringe spacing and the expected visibility
of the fringe pattern? (5.5 × 10−4 rad, V = 0.95)

17. A source of unknown angular extent α emitting light at λ = 550 nm is used in a Young’s double slit
experiment where the slit spacing d can be varied. The visibility is measured for different values of d. It is found
that the fringes vanish (V = 0) for d = 10 cm. What is the angular extent of the source? (Ans. 5.5 × 10−6 rad)

18. Estimate the coherence time τc and coherence length lc for the following sources.

Source λ (nm) ∆λ (nm)

(in nm), . Estimate the coherence length of Kr-86 source. (Ans. 0.3m)

20. An ideal Young’s double slit (i.e. identical slits with negligible slit width) is illuminated with a source
having two wavelengths, λ1 = 418.6 nm and λ2 = 421.4 nm. The intensity at λ1 is double of that at λ2.
a) Compare the visibility of fringes near order m = 0 and near order m = 50 on the screen (Ans. 1:0.5)
b) At what order(s) on the screen visibility of the fringes is poorest and what is this minimum value of the
visibility. (Ans. 75, 225 etc. and 1/3)

21. An ideal Young’s double slit (separation d between the slits) is illuminated with two identical strong
monochromatic point sources of wavelength λ. The sources are placed symmetrically and far away from the
double slit. The angular separation of the sources from the mid-point of the double slit is θs. Estimate θs so that
the visibility of the fringes on the screen is zero. Can one have visibility almost 1 for a non zero θs.

22. For a slit of dimensions 1 mm × 1 cm, what are the positions of the first three diffraction minima’s on either
side of the central maxima? Use λ = 550 nm and 0.1 mm.

23. For a rectangular slit whose smaller dimension is D, what are the positions of the diffraction maxima for
light of wavelength λ? (Ans. β∼ ±1.43π, ±2.46π, ±3.47π, etc.)

24. Calculate the ratio of intensities of the first intensity maximum and central maximum for the previous
problem. (Ans. ∼21)

25. Compare the angular resolutions of two circular apertures (D1 = 1 mm and λ1 = 550 nm) and (D2 = 45 m and
λ2 = 1 m).

26. A plane wave of light with wavelength λ = 0.5 µm falls on a slit of width = 10 µm at an angle 30◦ to the
normal. Find the angular position, with respect to the normal, of the first minima on both sides of the central
maxima.

27. Plot the intensity profile as a function of θ for a double slit with d = 0.1mm and b = 0.025mm. Assume
wavelength of the incident monochromatic light to be equal to 500nm. Keep |θ| < 2.5 degrees. Locate the
missing orders in this pattern.

28. Obtain the double slit pattern in the limit b → D and justify your answer intuitively

29. The collimator of a spectrometer has a diameter of 2cm. What would be the largest grating element for a
grating, which would just resolve the Sodium doublet at the second order, using this spectrometer? (Sodium
doublet: D1 = 589.0nm and D2 = 589.6nm, (Ans. d ∼0.04mm)

30. Obtain the expression of intensity for a double slit with separation d between the slits and individual slit
width D, as a special case of N=2.