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Optics 2016-2017: Solutions to problem set #1

Instructor: Paul Groot (p.groot@astro.ru.nl)


TA: Thomas Bronzwaer (t.bronzwaer@astro.ru.nl)
If you find any mistakes in these solutions, please e-mail me (Thomas)!

Problem 1.1
Here you were asked to write down Maxwells equations. They are given in P&W 2015 (Eq. 1.1 - 1.4).

Problem 1.2
In this programming exercise you were asked to compute the amplitude of the electric field of a plane wave
that strikes a glass surface (with angle of incidence zero degrees, i.e. the direction of motion of the plane
wave is perpendicular w.r.t. the glass surface).

The electric field amplitude of a plane wave in index of refraction n and absorption coefficient is given
by    n 
E(x, t) = E0 exp cos x t + , (1)
c c
where is the plane wave frequency, c is the speed of light, E0 is the maximum amplitude, and is a phase
factor. Thus, we must plot Eq. 1 for two different conditions: the glass has n = 1.6 (index of refraction) and
= 0.05 (absorption coefficient). In vacuum (or air), n 1 and 0.
A straightforward way of doing this is to define the origin of our coordinate system to lie at the glass
boundary; then, for x < 0, we take n = 1, = 0 while for x 0 we take n = 1.6, = 0.05.
A possible implementation of a function that plots the electric field amplitude in Python is (neglecting
import statements etc):
d e f E l e c t r i c F i e l d ( x a r r a y , f r e q u e n c y , max amplitude ) :
E a r r a y = np . z e r o s ( np . s i z e ( x a r r a y ) ) # I n i t i a l i z e a r r a y f o r E f i e l d
for i in x array :
i f x < 0 : # We a r e i n vacuum
E a r r a y [ i ] = a m p l i t u d e np . c o s ( ( omega / c ) x a r r a y [ i ] )
e l s e : # We a r e i n g l a s s
kappa = 0 . 0 5
n = 1.6
E a r r a y [ i ] = a m p l i t u d e np . exp (( kappa omega / c )
x a r r a y [ i ] ) np . c o s ( ( nomega/ c ) x a r r a y [ i ]
i = i + 1
return E array
We can now define a suitable array of x-values and print the output of our new function when given
suitable values for x array, frequency, and max amplitude (just play around with them until you see
about 10-20 oscillations in the plot).

Problem 1.3
a) For this part we need to use complex numbers. In essence all we need to do is solve Eq. 2.39 in P&W
for a range of . Then we plot the real and imaginary parts of the (square root) of the solution to that
equation. The plot will look much like Fig. 2.5 in the book.
A Python function that does the job is

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Optics 2016-2017: Solutions to problem set #1

d e f n k a p p a f u n c t i o n ( omega ) :
r e s u l t = np . z e r o s ( np . s i z e ( omega ) ) # omega i s an a r r a y o f v a l u e s
u=0
f o r i i n omega :
r e s u l t [ u]=cmath . s q r t (1+(w P 2 ) / ( w 02w [ u]2 1 j w [ u ] gamma ) )
return r e s u l t
Note that cmath contains mathematical functions for complex numbers; also note that result is an array
of complex numbers; to plot n, use the command result.real and for use result.imag.

b) This time we solve Eq. 2.40 from P&W (where we sum over the different resonant frequencies). For
this we can modify the above code snippet to include a summation over the resonant frequencies.

Problem 1.4
P&W exercise 2.10
a) First lets compute the total power of the laser pulse using the elementary relation P = E/t. We obtain
P = 100mJ/(2.51014 )s = 4e12W (you can just use Google for this type of thing). This power is distributed
over an area A = (5m)2 7.85 1011 m2 . Thus, the intensity is given by P/A 5.09 1022 W/m2 .
b) See Eq. 2.62 in P&W. The relation between intensity and E-field is I = n20 c |E02 |. Thus (in units
q
2I
of V /m!) |E0 | = n0 c . To obtain the value for angstroms instead of meters, note that the ratio of an
amstrong to a meter is 1 1010 .
c) To answer this question, simply use the relation E0 = cB0 .

P&W exercise 2.11


a) First, lets compute the total radiation power entering our eye. The intensity (power per area) of the
Sun on the Earths surface is I = 1400W/m2 , and the are of our pupil is A = (0.001m)2 3.14 106 m2 .
Thus our eye receives P = IA 0.00440W . To get the intensity on the retina, we need to divide this
power by the area on the retina on which it is deposited. This can be found by realizing that the radius
of the Sun is de-magnified by the ratio di /do (given in the question), so the area of the Sun on the retina
is Asunonret (di /do rsun )2 1.05 108 m2 . Finally, the intensity we seek is given by P/Asunonret
4.19 105 W/m2 .

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b) This is a very similar calculation as before. Now we have 1mW of power distributed over an area rwaist
2
so that the intensity is approximately equal to I 1273W/m (quite similar to the intensity of the Sun).
The power (P = 1mW ) is deposited on an area given by Alaseronret = (di /do rwaist )2 9.50 1013 m2 .
Thus the intensity on the retina is Iret = P/Alaseronret 1.05 109 W/m2 . The intensity is much higher in
this case because the laser beam is so thin - the laser emitter has a much smaller size than the Sun. The
power is more concentrated.

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