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The Michelson interferometer is the most common configuration for optical interferometry and was invented by Albert Abraham Michelson. An interference pattern is produced by splitting a beam of light into two paths, bouncing the beams back and recombining them. The different paths may be of different lengths or be comprised of different materials to create alternating interference fringes on a back detector. Michelson, along with Edward Morley, used this interferometer for the famous Michelson-Morley experiment in which this interferometer was used to prove the non-existence of the luminiferous aether. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1000x900, 232 KB) A Michelson Interferometer. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1000x900, 232 KB) A Michelson Interferometer. ...
An optical table is a piece of equipment for optics experiments and technologies. ...
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Albert Abraham Michelson. ...
Edward Morley (1887). ...
The Michelson-Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is considered by some to be the first strong evidence against the theory of...
The luminiferous aether: it was hypothesised that the Earth moves through a medium of aether that carries light In the late 19th century luminiferous aether (light-bearing aether) was the term used to describe a medium for the propagation of light. ...
Configuration
 A Michelson interferometer. There are two paths from the (light) source to the detector. One reflects off the semi-transparent mirror, goes to the top mirror and then reflects back, goes through the semi-transparent mirror, to the detector. The other first goes through the semi-transparent mirror, to the mirror on the right, reflects back to the semi-transparent mirror, then reflects from the semi-transparent mirror into the detector. interferometer diagram; for wiki by me File links The following pages link to this file: Speed of light Interferometry Categories: GFDL images ...
interferometer diagram; for wiki by me File links The following pages link to this file: Speed of light Interferometry Categories: GFDL images ...
A beam splitter is an optical device, that splits a beam of light in two. ...
Spheres reflecting the floor and each other. ...
If these two paths differ by a whole number (including 0) of wavelengths, there is constructive interference and a strong signal at the detector. If they differ by a whole number and a half wavelengths (e.g., 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 ...) there is destructive interference and a weak signal. This might appear at first sight to violate conservation of energy. However energy is conserved, because there is a re-distribution of energy at the detector in which the energy at the destructive sites are re-distributed to the constructive sites. The effect of the interference is to alter the share of the reflected light which heads for the detector and the remainder which heads back in the direction of the source. The wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern. ...
Interference of two circular waves - Wavelength (decreasing bottom to top) and Wave centers distance (increasing to the right). ...
In the late 1800's, the interference pattern was obtained by using a gas discharge lamp, a filter, and a thin slot or pinhole. In one version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, the interferometer used starlight as the source of light. Starlight is temporally incoherent light, but since it is a point source of light it has spatial coherence and will produce an interference pattern. Edward Morley (1887). ...
Coherence is the property of wave-like states that enables them to exhibit interference. ...
Application The most well known application of the Michelson Interferometer is the Michelson-Morley experiment that provided evidence for special relativity. However, this configuration can be used for an assortment of different applications. The Michelson-Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is considered by some to be the first strong evidence against the theory of...
The special theory of relativity was proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in his article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Some three centuries earlier, Galileos principle of relativity had stated that all uniform motion was relative, and that there was no absolute and well-defined state of rest...
The Michelson Interferometer has been used for the detection of gravitational waves, as a tunable narrow band filter, and as the core of Fourier transform spectroscopy. There are also some interesting applications as a "nulling" instrument that is used for detecting planets around nearby stars. For most purposes, however, the geometry of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer is more useful. In physics, gravitational radiation is energy that is transmitted through waves in the gravitational field of space-time, according to Albert Einsteins theory of general relativity: The Einstein field equations imply that any accelerated mass radiates energy this way, in the same way as the Maxwell equations that any...
FTIR of a thin film of ethanol in the liquid phase. ...
The Mach-Zehnder interferometer is used to determine the phase shift caused by a small sample which is to be placed into one of the two beams D and U, respectively, from a coherent light source. ...
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