Textbook
"Optics" by Eugene Hecht, 3rd edition
Class schedule:
MW 11:15-12:05 Reiss 502
F 10:15-12:05 Reiss 502, 501d
Instructor: Prof. Ed Van Keuren
Reiss Room 522, Lab Reiss Room 553
Tel x75982
Email: vankeu@physics.georgetown.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course outline
This course will take up where you left off in Electricity and Magnetism.
We'll start out with a review of basic electrodynamics and Maxwell’s equations.
This will lead to a discussion of wave propagation and optical properties
of materials. From there we will move into geometrical optics, which will
take up a large part of the course. Reflection and refraction at surfaces
will be followed by discussion on propagation through various optical components
including lenses, apertures, mirrors, prisms. We will also study polarization
and optical waveguides. After this we'll spend time on interference and
diffraction, and then return to geometrical optics in the form of Fourier
optics. Finally, we'll spend a few weeks concerned with some applications:
fluorescence, lasers, holography and nonlinear optics.
Web/reading assignments (Link to Blackboard)
Exams
We will have three in-class exams: 2/23, 3/26 and 4/23.
There will also be a final exam. The exams and final will be open book.
The dates for the exams are listed in the syllabus. The three exams will
be worth 10% each and the final 20%.
Collaboration, honor system
On the homework assignments and labs, you are encouraged to work together,
but it expected that you actively work out the problems or generate lab
results, i.e., not just copying. Since the web assignments are designed
to judge your understanding of the reading material in order to improve
the lectures, you must do them alone and you may not discuss the problems
in detail with your classmates prior to the lecture. Of course the exams
and final must be done alone.
Additional references on reserve
in the Science library
“Classical electrodynamics” by John David Jackson, Wiley, 1999.
“Fundamentals of optics” by Francis A. Jenkins & Harvey E. White,
McGraw-Hill, 1976
“Introduction to optics” by Frank L. Pedrotti & Leno S. Pedrotti,
Prentice Hall, 1993.
Grading
3 exams – 10% each
Final – 20%
Lab worksheets (12/13) – 20%
Web assignments (11/13) 10%
Homework (6) 20%