Bennett University

Take Home Supplementary Examination: EPHY206L; Optics and Lasers;

II Semester 2020-2021
Submission deadline: 5 pm; August 13, 2021
Important Instructions:
1. Please start every question on a separate page and write legibly.
2. The examination will be open book, open notes examination.
3. Discussions or sharing of answers among students will be considered to be a case of use of unfair
means in the examination.
4. Please number all pages sequentially before submitting and scan in sequence in portrait mode and
submit a pdf to my Bennett email address.
5. Please name your file as per the following:
Your_Name_Entry_Number_EPHY206L_Supplementary
6. Please write your name on the top of all sheets of your submission.
7. Submissions made after the deadline will not be evaluated.
All questions are compulsory Max Marks: 100
1. Give brief answers to the following: (6x4=24)
a) Consider a parabolic index medium specified by 𝑛2 (𝑥) = 𝑛02 (1 − 𝛼 2 𝑥 2 ) with n0 = 1.5 and  = 25
mm-1. A ray is launched parallel to the z-axis at a point with x = 10 m. What will be the angle made
by the ray with the z-axis when it is at x = 5 m?
b) A non-reflecting film is to be coated on a glass substrate (placed in air) having a refractive index of 1.9 so
that the film is non-reflecting at 550 nm. What should be the optimum refractive index and minimum
thickness of the film?
c) Consider a plane wave of wavelength 800 nm incident on a convex lens of diameter 4 cm and of focal
length 8 cm. Calculate the radius of the first dark ring on the focal plane of the lens.
d) The gain coefficient of an optical amplifier is 10 m-1. For an input power of 1 W, what will be the
power after propagating through 10 cm of the gain medium?
e) Consider a laser consisting of a pair of plane mirrors separated by a distance of 0.5 mm and filled with
a medium having a refractive index of 3.5. What will be the frequency spacing between different
oscillation frequencies?
f) Consider an optical fiber with a loss coefficient of 2 dB/km. At the input an optical power of 10 mW
is launched. After how much propagation distance will the power reduce to 20 W?
2. Consider a medium characterized by the following refractive index distribution:
𝑛2 (𝑥) = 𝑛02 + 𝛾𝑥 − 𝛼𝑥 2 ; 𝑥 > 0
= 𝑛02 ; 𝑥<0
where 𝛼 and 𝛾 are positive constants.
a) Starting from the ray equation, obtain the equation representing the ray path 𝑥(𝑧) in this medium in
the region 𝑥 > 0 assuming that the ray is launched from a point with coordinates 𝑥 = 0; 𝑧 = 0 and
making an angle 𝜃0 with the 𝑧 − axis. (6)
b) Obtain an expression for the value of 𝑧 where the ray will turn back towards the axis 𝑥 = 0. (4)

3. White light is reflected normally from a soap film of uniform thickness and placed in air. An interference
maximum is observed at a wavelength of 600 nm and a minimum of reflectivity at 450 nm with no
minimum or maximum in between. Assuming the soap film refractive index to be 1.33
a) Calculate the thickness of the soap film. (5)
b) If the incident intensity is 𝐼0 what will be the approximate intensity of the reflected light from the
film when its thickness becomes 1 nm? (3)
4. Consider a Fabry Perot interferometer with the reflecting plates (with equal reflectivities) of the
interferometer spaced by 1 cm and with air in between.
a) If the incident wavelength is 500 nm, what should be the reflectivity of the reflecting surfaces of
the interferometer so that a wavelength spacing of 10-4 nm is resolvable? (5)
b) If the incident power is 1 mW, what will be the power at the maximum and minimum in the
transmitted beam from the interferometer? Assume all other losses are negligible. (5)

5. Consider a diffraction grating of width of 6 cm with slits of width 2 m and with a separation between
centers of adjacent slits of 5 m. A parallel beam of light of wavelength 600 nm and of lateral width 3 cm
is incident normally on the grating and undergoes diffraction. The diffraction pattern is observed on a
screen placed at the back focal plane of a lens of diameter much larger than the grating width and of focal
length 20 cm (see figure below which is not to scale)
a) What will be the position of the first order spectrum on the screen? (5)
b) What will be the ratio of intensity of the second order to first order? (5)

2 m
5 m
Grating

6. Consider a laser transition between two energy levels separated by an energy of 1 eV with the
spontaneous lifetime of the upper level to be 10 milliseconds. This transition is described by a normalized
line shape function given by
1
𝑔(𝜔) = 𝐾
(𝜔 − 𝜔𝑐 )2 + Γ 2
where 𝐾 is a constant, 𝜔𝑐 is the center frequency and Γ = 25 × 106 s-1.
a) Obtain the value of the normalization constant 𝐾 . (5)
b) If the gain at 𝜔 = 𝜔𝑐 is 0.1 m-1, at what frequencies 𝜔 will the gain become 0.05 m-1?
(4)
7. A laser resonator consists of a convex mirror or radius of curvature 50 cm and a concave mirror of radius
of curvature 50 cm. The wavelength of the laser is given by 500 nm.
a) For what range of separation 𝑑 between the mirrors will the resonator be stable? (5)
b) Assuming a mirror separation of 20 cm, obtain the value of 𝑤0 of the Gaussian mode of the
resonator. (5)
c) What will be the distance of the position of the waist of the Gaussian beam with respect to the
convex mirror? (5)

8. Consider an optical fiber with 𝑛1 = 1.48, 𝑛2 = 1.46 and radius of the core 25 m. The fiber is made of
silica whose refractive index variation with wavelength is given by
1
𝑛(𝜆0 ) = 1.451 − 0.003 (𝜆20 − 2 )
𝜆0
where 𝜆0 is the free space wavelength measured in m. The wavelength of the light wave propagating
within the fiber is 800 nm.
a) For rays propagating within the fiber, for what range of angles made with the axis of the fiber will the
rays suffer total internal reflection at the core-cladding boundary? (4)
b) For the ray making the largest angle with the axis and undergoing total internal reflection at the core-
cladding boundary, how many reflections will take place over a length of 1 km of the fiber? (5)
c) Obtain the wavelength at which the group velocity will become independent of wavelength. (5)