STUDY OF THE FABRY-PEROT

INTERFEROMETER
Salman Suhail
M.Sc PHYSICS,IITGN
Roll no:14510042
salman.suhail@iitgn.ac.in
April 9, 2016

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Contents
1 ABSTRACT

2 INTRODUCTION

3 MAKING OF INSTRUMENT

4 THEORY
4.1 INTERFERENCE OF MULTIPLE BEAM . . . . . . . . . .

4
4

5 HOW IT WORK

PROCEDURE AND MEASUREMENTS

6.1 Calibration of Micrometer . . . . . . . . . .
6.2 Wavelength calculation . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2.1 Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3 Spacing of the Etalon . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 CONCLUSION

8 REFERENCES

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ABSTRACT

Our aim in this experiment to determine of the wave- length of the light
used and determination of the spacing between the Etalon.

INTRODUCTION

The Fabry-perot interferometer is a high resolving power instrument.It is

based on the concept of multiple beam interference.By which we take use of
the fringes of equal inclination,which are produced by the transmitted light
after multiple reflection in an air film between two parallel highly reflecting
glass plates.There is a fixed distance between these two parallel glass plates
which are containing a thin film of air in between them is called Fabry Perot
Etalon and if we fixed one of them and allowing other to move to change
their separation then the system is known as Fabry Perot Interferometer.

MAKING OF INSTRUMENT

Figure 1: Fabry perot interferometer

In this Interferometer there are two glass plates which are optically plane
and they have silver inner surface kept parallel to each other.To make our
task simple we use etalon which is easier to handle.The etalon consist of
two semi silvered coated plate rigidly parallel to each other held at fixed
distance from each other.The reflectance of the plates are usually high for
the experiment.Although both the reflected and transmitted wave shows
interference .

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THEORY

4.1

INTERFERENCE OF MULTIPLE BEAM

The Fabry perot interferometer devoted on concept of multiple beam interference.

let us consider the incidence of a plane wave on a plate of thickness d and
having refractive index n which is surrounded by medium of refractive index
n1 as shown below.And as in Fabry perot interferometer the film between
the glass plates is air,here am putting n = n1 to get desired result.

Figure 2: Multiple beam Interference

let A0 be the amplitude of incident wave,which is going through multiple
reflection in between the 2 interface as shown in above figure.Here r1 ,t1 representing the amplitude of reflection and transmission coefficient when the
wave incident n1 towards n and r2 ,t2 are representing the coefficient when
the wave incident from n to n1 .So the amplitude of successive reflected
waves will be A0 r1 , A0 t1 r2 t2 ei , A0 t1 r23 e2i .......... and so on.
4nd cos
where = 2
=

= phase difference between 2 successive wave emanating from the surface

= the path difference due to additional path traveled in the film
= the angle of refraction ,d = thickness of the film
= the wave length of the incident wave

Thus the resultant amplitude of the reflected wave will be

Ar = A0 [r1 + t1 t2 r2 ei (1 + r22 ei + r24 e2i + ............)]

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t1 t2 r2 ei
= A0 r1 +
1 r22 ei

If we will use the glasses of same reflectivity we can write R = r12 = r22
and = t1 t2 = 1 R and by using r2 = r1 we have


(1 R)ei
Ar
= r1 1
A0
1 Rei
Thus the reflectivity of the above arrangement is given by
 2


2
2
 Ar 
 1 ei 2
4R sin2 2

 = R (1 cos ) + sin


< =   = R
=
A0
1 Rei 
(1 R cos )2 + R2 sin2
(1 R)2 + 4R sin2
By putting F =

4R
(1R)2

we get
<=

2
sin2 2

F sin2
1+F

And the corresponding transmitivity

T =1<=

1
1 + F sin2

T = 1 when = 2m for m = 1, 2, 3, ....

HOW IT WORK

Figure 3: FABRY PEROT ETALON

The working of Fabry Perot is describe with the help of figure.
There is a source S of monochromatic light and also there are 2 parallel

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mirror having high reflectance which allows multiple reflection along with a
lens used to make the rays parallel.As we know that at each reflection a small
amount of light transmitted too , thus each incident ray produces a group
of coherent and parallel transmitted rays with a constant path difference
between any 2 successive rays.To converge these rays at a point we have to
use a Convex lens where they interfere and produce interference fringes on
the screen.
If we consider a light of specific wavelength , the incident wave will be
completely transmitted (i.e T = 1)if the angle of incident is such that
=

4nd cos
= 2m

m
2n
Here n is the refractive index and m is the order of fringe.
As in case of Fabry perot Interferometer the film between the 2 mirror
is air its refractive index is 1. Hence ,
cos =

cos =

m
2

It is clear from the above expression for cos that the fringes of equal
inclination will be a circle and hence in the fabry perot interferometer gives
circular fringes.
As we know the relation between and cos (On increasing,cos will
decrease) .Hence the fringe at the center is the highest order fringe.

PROCEDURE AND MEASUREMENTS

First of all we will do the calibration of Micrometer.

6.1

Calibration of Micrometer

To find the accurate measurement of the mirror movement we can calibrate

the micrometer in this way.Turn the micrometer upto count of 15 fringes
and note the value of change in micrometer reading and record this value
as d0 .But the actual mirror movement is given by d = N2 where is the
wavelength of the light source and N is the no of fringes counted.Then =
d/d0 is the calibration constant for the micrometer.
Here N = 15, d0 = 0.18mm = 650nm,

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N
15 650 109
=
= 4.875 106 m
2
2
Hence = d/d0 = 0.027
d=

6.2

Wavelength calculation

For calculating the wavelength we first change the separation between the
mirrors by using the micrometer and calculate the number of fringes that collapse in to the center.On repeating this two to three(here i took values three
times) times and calculate the mean distance covered by the mirror.The
formula by which wavelength will be given as 
2d
=

N
In table 1 data is given which is found in experiment.
Sr No No of Fringes Initial Reading Final Reading
1
20
0
23
2
20
23
45
3
20
45
70

=
6.2.1

Distance(in mm)
0.23
0.22
0.25

So is given by
0.027 = 639.09nm

3
( 20.236710
)
20

Error

As we know real wavelength for the laser in the experiment is 0 = 650nm

The wavelength that we got on experiment is = 639.09nm
So Error will be given by = Realvalue Experimentalvalue
= 0 = 10.91nm
10.91
Percentage error is given by =
0 100 = 650 100 = 1.6784 %

6.3

Spacing of the Etalon

If we are given the wavelength of light then we can also find the spacing
between the mirror from this experiment.For this,let the incident light on
the fabry perot etalon and allow it to fall on a screen,which will produce
circular fringes.In table 2 the radius of various fringes as shown in figure
below are given.

Average Distance(in

0.2367

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Figure 4: Circular Fringes Shown by Fabry perot Interferometer

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Fringe No
1
2
3
4
5
6

IIT Gandhinagar

Radius(cm)
0.0414
0.0785
0.102
0.1224
0.1389
0.155

Radius2 (incm2 )
1.713 103
6.16 103
10.4 103
15 103
19.3 103
24 103

2m = 2n+m 2n
0
4.447 103
8.687 103
13.287 103
17.587 103
22.287 103

t=

4.142 103
4.241 103
4.159 103
4.189 103
4.132 103

Here D = 65mm is the distance between tne etalon and the screen.
The average thickness of the etalon is 4.1716mm

CONCLUSION

In the above experiment of we found the wavelength of the laser light is

639.09nm with 1.6784 error and the thickness or the spacing of the etalon
is found to be 4.1716 mm.

REFERENCES
1. OPTICS by Ajoy Ghatak
2. www.google.com
3. wikipedia
4. IITGN Physics Lab manual

mD2
2n

Average t

4.1716 103