UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS
B.Sc. DEGREE COURSE IN Physics
SEMESTER SYSTEM WITH CREDITS
(Effective from the Academic Year 2003-2004)

SYLLABUS

Semester IV - Paper IV - Optics

Duration of Examination: 3 hrs
Maximum Marks: 100
Credits: 4

Unit I

Thick Lenses:

Convex lens - Principal foci and principal points - Thick lens formula - Power of a thick lens - Optic centre of a lens - Spherical aberration and lenses - Methods of minimizing spherical aberration - Condition for minimum spherical aberration in the case of two lenses separated by a distance - Chromatic aberration in lenses - Condition for achromatism of two thin lenses (in contact and out of contact) - coma - astigmatism - Curvature of the field - Huygen's and Ramsden's eye pieces,

Unit II

Dispersion:

Dispersion produced by a thin prism - Angular dispersion - Dispersive power - Cauchy's formula - combination of prisms to produce - Dispersion without deviation - Deviation without dispersion - Achromatic prisms Direct vision spectroscope - Constant deviation spectroscope - Rainbows and haloes.

Unit III

Interference:

Colours of thin films - Air wedge - Determination of diameter of a thin wire by air wedge - Test for optical flatness - Haidinger's fringes - Michelson's Interferometer - Theory - Applications - λ, thickness of thin transparent material and resolution of spectral lines - Brewster's fringes - Refractive index of gases - Jamin's & Rayleigh's Interferometers - Stationary waves in light - Colour photography (principle only), Holography (principle only).

Unit IV

Diffraction:

Fresnel diffraction - Diffraction at Circular aperture, Opaque circular disc, Straight edge and Narrow wire - Fraunhoffer diffraction - single slit - Double slit - Plane diffraction grating - theory and experiment to determine wave length - Normal Incidence - Oblique incidence - Missing orders - Overlapping spectra - Concave reflection grating with theory.

Rayleigh's criterion for Resolution - Resolving power of Microscope, Telescope, Prism and Grating.

Unit V

Polarization:

Double refraction - Nicol prism - polarizer and analyzer - Huygen's explanation of double refraction in uniaxial crystals - Dichroism - Polaroids and their uses - Double image polarizing prisms - quarter wave plate & half wave plate - Plane, elliptically and circularly polarized light - Production and detection - Babinet's Compensator - Optical Activity - Fresnel's explanation of optical activity - Specific Rotatory Power - Determination using Laurent's Half Shade Polarimeter.

Books for Study

Books for Reference

1. Fundamentals of Optics by Jenkins A Francis and White E. Harvey, McGraw Hill Inc., New Delhi, 1976.

2. Optical Physics by Lipson. S.G., Lipson H., and Tannhauser D.S., Cambridge University press, (1995).

3. Fundamentals of Optics by Raj M.G., Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., (1996), New Delhi.

4. Fundamentals of Physics, 6^th Edition, by D.Halliday, R.Resnick and J.Walker. Wiley, NY, 2001.

5. Physics, 4^th Edition Vols I, II & II Extended by D.Halliday, R.Resnick and K.S.Krane, Wiley, NY, 1994.

6. CRC Handbook of Physics & Chemistry, 80^th Ed., CRS Press, NY, 1999.

7. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vols. I, II, and III, by R. P. Feynman, R B Leighton and M Sands, Narosa, New Delhi, 1998.