1 Introduction

Homework problems for Spring 2020.

1.1 Frequency and Wavelength

(Similar to one in the book)
Light at λ = 1.3 µm is introduced into a harmonic generator
that absorbs some of the input light and emits it at twice and
three times the input frequency. What color are the input light
and the two outputs?

1.2 Energy (Similar to one in the book)

An energy of 4.2 Joules will heat a cubic centimeter of water
by one degree Celsius. Light from a carbon dioxide laser at
λ = 10.6 µm is almost completely absorbed by water. How
much energy would be required to bring a cup of water from
room temperature to the boiling temperature? How much
power would be required to do so in 10 seconds? Assume that
no heat is dissipated from the water during the heating time.
Note that you do not need to include the heat required to
actually make it boil (which is even larger).

1.3 Wavelength
Light in the ultraviolet–C band is most harmful to skin. Does
a glass window offer protection from this wavelength?

1.4 Index of Refraction

What is the speed of light in water? A helium–neon laser has a
wavelength of 632.8 µm (in vacuum). What is the wavelength
of this light in water?

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2 optics for engineers

1.5 Speed
A very short pulse of light is emitted from a laser radar, and
is reflected back from an object 1 km away. How long after the
transmitted pulse is the received pulse?
We would like to do a similar experiment on the cornea of
an eye. We expect two reflections, one from the front of the
cornea and one from the back. The cornea thickness for this
patient is 500 µm and we’ll assume the index of refraction is
1.4. What is the difference in arrival time of the two pulses?
Do you think this will work?

1.6 Macroscopic Effects

List three materials that are mostly specular reflectors for vis-
ible light. List three that are mostly diffuse, and three that
exhibit both effects to a noticeable degree.

1.7 Imaging
One way we can estimate the distance to an object is by trian-
gulation. If a small object is very far away, rays of light from
it are nearly parallel. As we bring the object closer, the angles
of the rays (normal to the wavefronts) to our two eyes become
different. What is the difference between these angles for an
object at 10 m? What is it at 10 cm?
2 Basic Geometric Optics

2.1 Concave Mirror

Figure 2.1 shows a large concave mirror behind a table with
a light bulb mounted under the table. An observer is located
some distance to the right in the figure. The mirror has a focal
length of f = 2 m. What value of z will make the image of the
light bulb appear directly above the bulb? What will be the
magnification?

2.2 Snell’s Window

In the photo on the cover of the book, the camera was looking
in the zenith direction. Define this as the zero angle. At what
angle is the boundary between the circular image region and
the black background? To what angle does that correspond in
the air above the water? Estimate the ratio of the height of the
trees in the upper left portion of the image to their distance
from the camera.

FIGURE 2.1
Imaging with a Concave Mirror. Where is the image? How big is
it?

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4 optics for engineers

2.3 Light Guide

In Figure 2.2 we punch a hole in a plastic bottle. We then fo-
cus a laser beam into the hole, and finally fill the bottle with
water. As water leaks out of the hole, the light follows the wa-
ter because of total internal reflection. What is the maximum
half–angle to which we can focus the light and still achieve
guiding of the light? This is the principle behind many deco-
rative water displays and also modern fiber–optical communi-
cation.

2.4 Lens Design

In Figure 2.2 the lens has a convex first surface and a flat
second surface. If the bottle is 10 cm across and the incident
light is collimated, what must be the radius of curvature of
the first surface? Assume n = 1.5.

FIGURE 2.2
Light Guide. Light passes through a hole in a bottle, through
which water exits. The light follows the water.
3 Matrix Optics

3.1 Principal Planes

We have purchased a plano–convex lens with a focal length
of f = 10 cm, and thickness z12 = 8 mm. Design an imaging
system with this lens to have a magnification of m = −5. That
is, specify the distance from the object to the front surface and
the distance from the back surface to the image. The front
surface is the flat one.

3.2 Germanium Lens

The “rule of thirds,” that the spacing of principal planes for a
simple lens is one third of the thickness, was derived assuming
n = 1.5. What is the appropriate rule for a germanium lens
(n = 4) used in the infrared region of the spectrum?

3.3 Compound Lens

A certain microscope consists of an objective lens, (Lens 1),
and a tube lens (Lens 2). The object is placed at the front
focal plane of the objective lens and the image is at the back
focal plane of the tube lens. The tube lens has a focal length
of 200 mm. The objective is labeled 20X, which means that
the magnification will be 20 when used with this particular
tube lens. The working distance (the distance from the object
to the front vertex of the objective is given in the instruction
manual as 7 mm. The lenses are separated by the sum of their
focal lengths. Assuming thin lenses what is the matrix for the
combination?
Now the objective isn’t really a thin lens (or even a simple
one). Where is its front principal plane located?

3.4 Magnification
Now you have bought the microscope objective in problem 3.3,
but you want to build your own microscope. Your tube lens
has a focal length of 100 mm. You will change the spacing of
the lenses so that it is still the sum of the focal lengths. What
is the magnification of your microscope.

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6 optics for engineers

3.5 Lens in Water (G)

The “rule of thirds,” that the spacing of principal planes for
a simple lens is one third of the thickness, was derived also
assuming that the ambient medium is air (n = 1). If a glass
lens of focal length, f is immersed in water, what is it’s new
focal length? What is the rule for spacing of principal planes?

3.6 Multiple Reflections (G)

Consider the lens in Problem 3.1. Now we want to collimate
a point source. This could represent a very small laser beam
passed through a pinhole. How far in front of the flat surface
do we place the point source?
Now despite our best efforts, there will always be some re-
flection from the glass–air interfaces. We can often make this
reflection as small as 1%, but it’s challenging to do much bet-
ter. Some light will be reflected from the second (curved) sur-
face, back to the first surface, and then to the second surface
again where it will be refracted. Because the second surface
appears concave it will have positive focusing power in reflec-
tion added to the positive refracting power, and will form a
real image. Where? Hint: Treat the reflection from a convex
surface as an ideal thin lens of the appropriate positive focal
length.
4 Stops, Pupils, and Windows

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5 Aberrations

This assignment covers Chapters 1 through 5, on geometric

optics. The goal is to design a microscope illumination system
for structured illumination. I want to put a pattern of light on
my object using a spatial light modulator (SLM).
The light source is a 2 mm square LED. I want to place
the light source in a pupil plane and illuminate a spatial light
modulator in a field plane. This device allows me to choose a
different transmission for each pixel. The spatially modulated
light is delivered “backward” through a microscope that has
a tube lens of 200 mm focal length, and a 10X/0.25 objective.
This means that the magnification is −10 when used with this
tube lens, and N A = 0.25. The SLM is square with a diagonal
dimension of 14 mm, and 1000X1000 pixels.
In the pupil plane between the objective and tube lens is
an aperture which determines the NA.
(a) Determine the focal lengths of all the lenses and draw
the layout assuming thin lenses. Draw rays from the center
of the source going through the edge of the SLM all the way
to the object. Draw rays from the center of the SLM going
through the edge of the pupil.
Draw the pupils (source and aperture) in every pupil plane
to scale.
Draw the windows (SLM) in every field plane to scale.
What is the size of a pixel on the object?
(b) Use biconvex and/or plano–convex lenses to get to the
second stage of the design. You may estimate the sizes or use
lenses from a vendor’s catalog. Draw the system with lens
spacings carefully labelled.
(c: Graduate Students) Determine the lateral aberrations
caused by the objective lens. Express as “XDL.” Is this really
going to work, or do I need a better lens design?
I might actually implement this with a digital mirror device
(DMD), which will be less expensive than the SLM. Then the
source–design will use a reflective geometry rather than trans-
missive, but this will just make the design problem harder.

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6 Polarized Light

Complete problem 6.2 in the text (EO Modulator), except that

the modulator is aligned at 41 degrees and the quarter wave
plate at 48 degrees instead of the intended 45 degrees for both.

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7 Interference

7.1 Laser Cavity

We would like to make a helium–neon laser (λ = 632.8 nm)
that runs on only a single cavity mode. The gain line is about
1.5 GHz wide, so we need to make sure the spacing of the cavity
modes is that large.
a. What is the length of a cavity that has a free spectral
range of 1.5 GHz? Should the laser be longer or shorter than
this length? Can we expect high power from this laser?
b. What is the longitudinal mode number for this laser? In
other words, what is the laser frequency divided by the free
spectral range?
c. To keep the laser operating at the center of the gain line,
we need to tune it so that this longitudinal cavity mode will be
at the center of the gain line, and we need to do so dynamically
as the cavity length changes with temperature. How far do we
need to move the mirror at the end of the cavity?

7.2 Anti–Reflection Coating

We want to coat glass with a quarter–wave thickness of mag-
nesium flouride (n = 1.35?). We’d like this coating to work
across the visible spectrum.
a. What should be the thickness of the coating?
b. Plot the reflectivity of the coated glass as a function of
wavlength from 400 to 800 nm. How much does it reflect at
the minimum and maximum wavlengths?

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8 Diffraction

8.1 Astronomy Resolution

a. What is the angular separation between first nulls of a tele-
scope with a 30 cm aperture diameter?
b. What is the Rayleigh resolution limit of this telescope.
c. Saturn has a diameter of 120, 536 km and a minimum
distance from Earth of about 1.28 × 109 km . If I image Saturn
with this telescope and want two camera pixels per Rayleigh
resolution, how many pixels in each direction do I need?
d. What do you think about the possibility of resolving
Saturn with a dark–adapted eye having a pupil diameter of
8 mm? Think about this problem just in terms of diffraction.
In reality, aberrations will degrade the resolution of the eye.

8.2 (Graduate Students) Beam Pattern

Plot the far–field diffration pattern of a telescope with a 30 cm
diameter aperture and a central 5 cm obstruction, with a wave-
length of 10.59 µm. This is a Cassegrain telescope, in which the
secondary mirror obscures part of the primary. The light en-
ters the secondary and exits from the primary, being obscured
by the secondary. Hint: Don’t panic! Subtract the diffracted
field that would have existed from the obscured pattern from
the field that would have been diffracted from the unobscured
primary. Remember to use the fields and then take the mag-
nitude squared of the final diffraction pattern.

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9 Gaussian Beams

9.1 Laser Radar Focusing

a. Consider a laser radar emitting a Gaussian beam of diame-
ter 20 cm with a wavelength of 2.1 µm. At distances of 50, 500,
5000, and 50,000 meters, what is the focused beam diameter,
and what is the depth of field? Remember the depth of field
is twice the Rayleigh range of the waist diameter. Remember
that in some cases the solution may be impossible. Also re-
member that there may be two solutions, and it makes sense
to pick the one with the smaller beam diameter.
b. In view of your answers, comment on the feasibility of
using a focusing to select a range with this laser radar.

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10 Coherence

Assume we have a white light source which we would like to

make coherent. We consider two cases.
a. We want the source to have a coherence length of 10 µm
so that we can do interferometry with it. We’d like the cen-
ter wavelength to be 555 nm which is the peak of the vi-
sual response of humans. What bandwidth filter is required
in nanometers?
b. In the second case we’d like the coherence time to be one
tenth of a second so we can see visually the random fluctua-
tions when the light scatters from moving particles (speckle).
Now what bandwidth is required?
c. Comment on whether each of these is practical. Think
about whether a filter of the desired bandwidth can be made
(you might look at vendors catalogs online), and also think
about what fraction of the white light source would pass
through the filter.

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11 Fourier Optics

What is the maximum spatial frequency that can pass through

a microscope objective that has a magnification of 20 and nu-
merical aperture of 0.45? Use a wavelength of 530 nm.
In image space, what is the maximum spatial frequency
and what pixel size is required to satisfy the Nyquist criterion
for sampling?

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12 Radiometry and Photometry

A particular mercury–cadmium–telluride infrared detector has

a diameter of 100 µm and is sensitive to light with wavelengths
from 9 to 11 µm. It collects light over a solid angle of π stera-
dians. How many Watts does it receive from a 300 K back-
ground?
Now suppose it is protected by an aperture that acts like
a blackbody at 77 K so that only 0.1 steradian sees the 300 K
background. What are the power contributions from the aper-
ture and the background?

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13 Optical Detection

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14 Nonlinear Optics

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15 Optical Breadboarding

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