Lab Manual-Michelson Interferometer V.aug.2023

BITS-Pilani K.K.
Birla Goa Campus, Physics Department

PHY F214: Electromagnetics and Optics Laboratory
Michelson Interferometer
Warning: This experiment involves using a class IIIB He-Ne laser. Exposure is sufficient
to create temporary/permanent blind spots on the retina. Take all possible precautions to
ensure that neither the direct nor the reflected beam enters your eyes or those of your
neighbours. DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE LASER BEAM BEFORE OR
AFTER INTERFERENCE.
Material supplied
1) He-Ne laser, 2) two beam folding mirrors, 3) one beam splitter, 4) one adjustable
mirror, 5) one adjustable mirror with fine movement, 6) one angular movement stage,
7) one glass plate {1”x3”, for measurement of its refractive index}, 8) one
micrometer screw gauge, 9) a convex lens, 10) vertical wooden strips with holes for
beam height adjustment.
Purpose of the Experiment
1) To set up a Michelson interferometer to get straight line fringes.

2) Using the given convex lens, to get circular fringes.
3) Using the setup, measure the wavelength of the laser source.
4) Using the same setup, to measure the refractive index of the given glass plate.
Basic Methodology
Once the interferometer is set up for circular fringes, one can move the movable
mirror to change the central fringe from bright-dark-bright. From the movement of
the mirror with the fine adjustment screw, one can count the number of fringes
moved out or in (depending on the direction of motion of the screw), the wavelength
of the laser can be found out.
By inserting the glass plate (mounted on a rotational mount) in one arm of the
interferometer, by rotation of the plate, as the optical path length through the glass
plate changes, the fringes move in/out. By counting the number of these fringes
versus angle of the plate, one can calculate the refractive index of the glass plate.
Theory of a Michelson Interferometer
A Michelson interferometer consists of a

monochromatic source, a beam splitter, two mirrors
and a screen. A typical setup is shown in the
adjacent figure. The light reflected by the two mirrors
is made to interfere on the screen. For a plane wave-
front, straight fringes are formed, with the separation
between the fringes depending on the angle between
the two mirrors (i.e. the deviation from 90o angle). The fringes move as the
1
BITS-Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus, Physics Department
separation between the mirrors is changed. If the two mirrors are exactly
perpendicular to each other, then one does not get fringes, but gets uniform field
which goes through intensity maximum and minimum as the mirrors are moved.
However, this case if difficult to get and one normally gets straight line fringes. A
convex lens can be inserted between the beam splitter and the screen to magnify the
fringes. By counting the number of fringes moved when the movable mirror is
moved, one can determine the wavelength of the laser light. Each fringe shift
corresponds to a movement of the mirror by half wavelength distance (independent
of the fringe separation!)
One can also get circular fringes with the same setup. The
convex lens is moved from its position between beam splitter and
the screen to the beam splitter and the second beam steering
mirror. The lens provides a divergent (spherical) wave-front
(instead of the plane wave-front in the previous case), as if starting
from a point source (i.e. from the point the beam gets focused by the convex lens).
With slight adjustment of the height and lateral position of this lens, one can get
circular fringes (Newton’s rings-like, shown in adjacent figure). By adjusting the
movable mirror, one can get inward or outward movement of the rings. The central
spot can be made either dark or bight, and from the number of times it goes through
the dark-bright-dark cycle by moving the adjustable mirror, one can get the
wavelength or refractive index. Each bright-dark-bright cycle of the central spot
corresponds to half wavelength distance.
Theory : Formation of circular fringes due to two point sources

Consider two point sources situated on a line perpendicular to a screen. Let “d” be
the distance between the two sources and let “D” be the distance of the screen from
the mid-point of the two sources. As there is cylindrical symmetry along the axis on
which the two sources are located, one would get circular fringes. To get the
separation of the fringes, consider the following diagram:
rn
L
L1 L2
D
L
L1 L2
d/2 d/2 2
From the above figure, we have L12 = (D+d/2)2 + r n2 and L22 = (D-d/2)2 + rn2
➔ L12 – L 22 = 2L (L 1-L 2) = 2L (ΔL)
➔ 2L (ΔL) = 2Dd or ΔL = Dd/L
L2 = D2 + rn2 ➔ L ~ D (1 + rn2/2D2)
Hence, ΔL = Dd/L = d/(1 + rn2/2D2) = d (1 - r n2/2D2) as r <<
n D
For constructive interference, d - ΔL = nλ or ΔL = d – nλ
Hence, d – nλ = d(1 - r n2/2D2) or nλ = d r n2/2D2 or rn2 = 2D2 nλ/d
➔ rn =  [(2D2λ/d) n] = D [(2λ/d) n] or rn α n.
Hence the fringe pattern will look like Newton rings.
Note that unlike in the Newton rings, where the central ring is always dark, here the
intensity of the central fringe depends on “d”. As “d” changes, the central fringe
brightness will keep cycling between dark and bright. The fringes will either appear to
move in or out depending on the sense of change in “d” (increase/decrease).
Experimental setup
Steering Steering
Mirror 2 Mirror 1
Fixed
Mirror Beam Screen
Splitter
He-Ne
Movable Laser
Mirror
Part 1: Alignment of the Michelson Interferometer :
1) Align the laser to have nearly horizontal beam (i.e. parallel to the vibration-free
base). Use the height adjuster with a hole, provided to you for this purpose.
2) Fold the beam by 90o with first steering mirror and fix the mirror holder to the
base with the internal tapped holes, with bolts and Allen key provided.
3) Adjust the height of the reflected beam using the height adjuster.
4) Fold the beam further by 90o with second steering mirror and fix it to the base.
3
5) Adjust the beam height, so that it falls horizontally on the movable mirror.
6) Fix this mirror with the base and tweak its adjustment knobs so that the reflected
beam almost goes almost back to the laser.
7) Fix the beam splitter at 45o so as to reflect the laser beam by 90o towards the
fixed mirror. Adjust the height of the reflected beam to make it horizontal.
8) Adjust the beam splitter with the height adjuster to have the reflected beam
incident horizontally on the movable mirror.
9) Fix the fixed mirror at a distance one inch less from the beam splitter than the
movable mirror. Make sure all mounts are rigidly fixed to the base with bolts.
10) Get the beam reflected by this mirror to go back to the laser.
11) At this point, on the screen, four laser spots, two from each mirror, will be seen.
12) Adjust the fixed mirrors screws to have one spot from each mirror overlap with
each other, so as to get parallel fringes. (Out of 4 combinations, only 2
combinations will give good st. line fringes.)
13) These fringes are difficult to see and can be seen more easily by putting the
convex lens just after the beam splitter (towards the screen) to magnify the
straight fringes. [These are difficult to count and hence one uses circular fringes]
14) Now move the convex lens before the beam splitter (towards the second steering
mirror) and adjust it vertically and horizontally to see circular fringes on the
screen. Any one of the two mirrors can be tweaked a bit to get these fringes in
the centre of the laser beam. (You may have to struggle a bit to get these fringes)
15) The interferometer is now fully aligned to take readings.
❖ Please note that the width of the central ring depends on the relative separation
between the two mirrors (as explained later in the Appendix). Lesser this
separation, wider will be the central fringe, and it will fill up the whole screen for
exactly zero separation (as in the case of straight line fringes)!
Part 2: Estimation of wavelength of the laser :
1) Adjust the movable mirror to have the central fringe to be dark (or bright). Note
the reading on its scale. The least count of the micrometer screw is 10 microns.
2) It should be noted that to have fine movement of the mirror, this mount has a
special lever arrangement such that the actual movement of the mirror is 1/40 th of
the movement of the micrometer. (Effectively 250 nm least count)
4
3) Count 20 fringes and note the distance moved on the micrometer.
4) By taking into consideration the 1/40th lever action and factor of 2 due to
reflection in the mirror, calculate the wavelength of the laser.
5) Repeat this five times by moving the micrometer screw in the same direction.
6) Tabulate the readings and results as follows:
Number of Initial reading Final reading Mirror shift λ = 2D/N

Sr. # (x) [μm] (y) [μm] [μm]
fringes (N) D =(y-x)/40
1 20
2 20
3 20
--
10 20
7) Calculate the average value of the laser wavelength (in μm)

8) Calculate the error in the value of the wavelength from the formula.
9) Calculate the standard error of the mean for the wavelength.
Part 3: Measurement of refractive index of the glass plate :

1) Mount the given glass slide on the stand with circular scale.
2) Keep this stand in between the movable mirror and the beam splitter, with the
beam splitter perpendicular to the beam and the circular vernier scale on the
mount easily visible to you. Fix the mount on the base with bolts.
3) Adjust the glass slide to be perpendicular to the beam by looking at its back
reflection. Note the scale reading. [Note that the least count of the internal scale
is 2o and the outer vernier scale divides it into 10 to get 0.2o as the least count].
4) Adjust the movable mirror to have the central fringe to be dark (or bright).
5) Now count 15 intensity cycles continuously and note the scale reading.
6) Note the angle of rotation (from normal incidence) for shift of the 15 fringes from
the above scale readings.
7) Repeat Steps 3-6 (above) five times to get an average value of the angle (θ) for
N=15 fringes (i.e. 15 intensity cycles of the central spot).
8) Using the micrometer provided, measure the thickness “t” of the glass slide (μm).
9) Calculate the refractive index of the given glass slide (plate) using the formula
μ = 1 + {[ Nλ cos θ ] / [ 2t (1 – cos θ) – Nλ ]}
5
10) Tabulate the results as follows: t= μm; λ = 0.633 μm
Number of Initial reading Final reading Angle moved Refractive index

Sr. #
fringes (N) (P) [degrees] (Q) [degrees] θ = (Q-P)o (μ)
1 15
2 15
.. 15
.. 15
10 15
11) Calculate the average value of the refractive index and the error.
12) Calculate the standard error of the mean for the refractive index.
Results:
1) Average value of the laser wavelength (in μm) (Part 2)
2) Error in the value of the wavelength from the formula. (Part 2)
3) The standard error of the mean for the wavelength. (Part 2)
4) Average value of the refractive index (Part 3)
5) The standard error of the mean for the refractive index (Part 3)
General instructions:
➢ Before inserting the divergent lens, each mirror produces two spots on the
screen. One spot from each mirror has to be overlapped to see interference in
the overlap. If one combination does not give good fringes, try the other one.
➢ It must be kept in mind that in a Michelson interferometer, when one obtains a

point source by focusing the laser beam, by moving a mirror by a distance “x”,
the distance between the two point-sources (formed by the two mirrors) will
change by “2x”.
➢ In the expression for the fringe radius, note that the separation “d” between the
sources appears in the denominator. Hence if “d” is very small, the central fringe
becomes quite large and it becomes difficult to see the outer fringes. In such
case, it is advisable to shift the movable mirror mount to adjacent fixing holes so
that the central fringe becomes smaller and more outer fringes are seen.
➢ Except the convex lens, all other mounts should be tightly clamped to the
vibration-free base using the internal hex bolts provided with the Allen wrench.
Even then, there will be some intensity fluctuations in the fringe pattern due to air
currents (AC can be switched off to reduce these fluctuations).
6
Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO)
➢ In 1905, Henry Poincaré proposed that just as an accelerating charge produces

electromagnetic wave, an accelerating massive object should produce a
“Gravitational wave” travelling with the velocity of light.
➢ In 1915-16, through his “General Theory of Relativity”, Albert Einstein also

proposed gravitational wave as a disturbance of the “curvature of the space-time”
due to accelerating mass.
➢ Unlike the electromagnetic waves which are transverse, the gravitational waves
are “Transverse-Transverse” or “Quadrupole” waves. So when they pass through
an object, it gets contracted in one direction and stretched in the perpendicular
direction.
➢ As the length change is very small, huge laser interferometers based on the
Michelson interferometer (used in the present experiment), having the two arms
of length up to 4 km have been built to observe the gravitational wave.
➢ The expected change in 4 km length is so small (~10-18 m) that it is of the order

of ten thousandth of the size of a proton. The accuracy required to measure this
is equivalent to measuring the distance of the nearest star “Proxima Centauri”,
which is located 4.25 light years away, with an accuracy of just 50 microns!
➢ One cannot increase the length of the arms of the interferometer more than 4 km
as the curvature due to the Earth being round comes into picture.
➢ To effectively increase the length of

the arm, two mirrors are kept in each
arm, which on multiple reflections,
increase the effective length of each
arm (see the adjacent figure)
➢ There are two such identical LIGO

observatories in USA (4 km arms),
one at Hanford and other one at
Livingstone. A third one, not identical Source : Wikipedia
one, is VIRGO (3 km arms) in Italy, Europe. These laboratories together
recorded the first gravitation wave event on 14th Sept. 2015 (GW150914 event).
➢ The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Kip
Thorne and Barry Barish, for their role in the detection of gravitational wave.
➢ The third LIGO laboratory is coming up in India at Aundha-Hingoli in Maharashtra

under Indo-US collaboration (MIT, CalTech, IUCAA-Pune, RRCAT-Indore, IPR-
Gandhi Nagar, and DCSEM-Mumbai are the collaborating institutes).
7
Food for thought
Before coming to do the experiment, the students may ponder over the following:
1) The diagrams of Michelson interferometer in text books show the light source just
before the beam splitter. Then, why does one use steering mirrors in this
experiment between the source (laser) and the beam splitter?
2) As outlined in the procedure, why does one have to use the height adjuster at
every stage in setting up the mirrors?
3) After alignment of both arms of the interferometer, why does one get four spots
on the screen instead of two?
4) A convex lens is used to magnify the straight line fringes formed by plane wave-
fronts. However, the lens will produce spherical wave-fronts. So how does one
get straight line fringes on the screen?
5) How does one get circular fringes when the same convex lens is inserted before
the beam splitter?
6) Can one use a concave lens instead of a convex lens to produce circular fringes?
7) With two beams overlapping, when can one get the screen fully uniformly
illuminated, without any fringe?
8) Why do we take fringe shift for 15 cycles instead of one or two?
9) When the micrometer screw on the movable mirror mount has least count of 10
microns, how can one measure mirror shift of about 1/3rd micron per fringe shift?
10) In the refractive index measurement, how does one ensure that the glass plate is
normal to the laser beam to start with?
11) Why do you have to fix all the mirror mounts to the table with bolts? Even after
bolting the mirror mounts to the vibration-free base, why do you still get
fluctuations in the intensity of the central spot of the circular fringes? How can
one stop these fluctuations?
12) In an interferometer, the change in length between the two arms matters and not
the absolute lengths of the arms. Then why do interferometers used to measure
gravitational wave have several km long arms?
8
General Information about He-Ne laser :
The He-Ne laser was first fabricated by Ali Javan, Bennett and Harriott in Dec.
1960 at Bell Telephone Laboratories in USA, just 7 months after the invention of the
first laser by Theodore Maiman in May 1960. Its lasing medium consists of a mixture
of helium and neon gases in a ratio of about 10:1, placed inside a long narrow
discharge tube. The pressure inside the tube is ~1 mm of Hg. The gas system is
enclosed between a pair of mirrors (resonator). One of the mirrors is of very high
reflectivity while the other is partially transparent so that energy may be coupled out
of the system.
The ground state (lowest energy state) of helium is 1S0 level arising from two
valence electrons in the 1s shell. The excitation of either one of these electrons to
the 2s orbit sends the atom in a 1S0 or a 3S1 state, both metastable (meaning: long
lived), since transitions to the ground state are forbidden by selection rules.
Neon, with Z = 10, has 10 electrons
in the ground state and is represented
Collisions
by the configuration 1s22s22p6. When
one of the six 2p electrons is excited to Metastable
the 3s or a higher orbit, triplet and levels
singlet energy levels arise. A subshell Collisions
like 2p , lacking only one electron from

5
a closed subshell, behaves as though it

were a subshell containing one 2p Electron
Fast radiative
electron. The number and designations excitations
transitions
of the levels produced are therefore the
Diffusion to
same as for two electrons, all triplets tube walls
and singlets, like in the case of helium.
As free electrons collide with helium Source: World Wide Web
atoms during the electric discharge, one of the two bound electrons may be excited
to 2s orbits, i.e. to the 3S1 or 1S0 states. Since downward transitions are forbidden by
radiation selection rules, these are metastable states and the number of excited
atoms increases. We therefore have pumping from the ground state 1S0 and into the
metastable states 3S1 and 1S0. When such a metastable helium atom collides with a
neon atom in its ground state, there is a high probability that the excitation energy
will be transferred to the neon atom, raising it to one of the 1P1 or 3P0,1,2 levels of
2p55s (Collisions of second kind, where kinetic energy is not conserved). The small
excess energy is converted into kinetic energy of the colliding atoms. In this process,
each helium atom returns to the ground state as each colliding neon atom is excited
to the upper level of corresponding energy. The probability of a neon atom being
raised to the 2p53s or 2p53p levels by collision is extremely small because of the
large energy mismatch. The collision transfer therefore selectively increases the
population of the upper levels of neon. Since selection rules permit transitions from
these levels downward to the 10 levels of 2p53p and these in turn to the 4 levels of
9
2p53s, stimulated emission can speed up the process of lasing. Lasing requires only
that the 4s and 5s levels of neon be more densely populated than the 3p levels (i.e.
population inversion). Since the 3p levels of neon are more sparsely populated,
lasing can be initiated without pumping a majority of the atoms out of the ground
state.
Light waves emitted within the laser at wavelengths such as 6328, 11177 and
11523 Å will occasionally be emitted parallel to the tube axis. Bouncing back and
forth between the end mirrors, these waves will stimulate emission of the same
frequency from other excited neon atoms, and the initial wave, with the stimulated
wave, will travel parallel to the axis. The most intense amplified wavelength in the
visible spectrum being the red line at 6328 Å (0.6328 μm).
Cross sectional view of a He-Ne laser (Curtsey: CVI Melles Griot)
❖ He-Ne laser operating at 6328 Å (632.8 nm) is the most commonly used laser in
academic institutions, although it is now being replaced by the more compact
solid state diode lasers.
❖ It must be noted that the first He-Ne laser made by Ali Javan at Bell Labs
operated at 1.15 μm (11523 Å, infra-red). The now popular He-Ne laser operating
at 6328 Å (Visible, red) came 18 months later from the same group. Green He-Ne
lasers operating at 543 nm are also available now.
❖ Any He-Ne laser with resonator length (i.e. separation between the mirrors) less
than about 12 cm, will have the mode separation more than the line width (1.2
GHz) and hence will operate in single longitudinal mode. Such a laser will have a
long coherence length. Such lasers are useful in labs for optics experiments
involving interference.
❖ Due to low gain, mostly the mirrors of the laser are put directly on the tube ends
to eliminate losses due to tube end walls. Such laser beams are unpolarized,
unless a polarizing element is placed in the resonator cavity.
❖ To have a polarized He-Ne laser, the mirrors are kept outside the tube, but the
tube end walls have Brewster windows (i.e. glass windows kept at Brewster angle
for low reflection loss), which make the laser light linearly polarized.
END
10
Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer
Original source material: FUNDAMENTALS OF OPTICS, Fourth Edition – Francis A. Jenkins and Harvey
E. White, McGraw-Hill , ISBN 0-07-256191-2
11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21
Appendix II: Michelson Interferometer

Original source material: OPTICS, Second Edition Ajoy Ghatak, Tata McGraw-Hill , ISBN 0-07-460138-5
22

23

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BITS-Pilani K.K.

Birla Goa Campus, Physics Department

1) To set up a Michelson interferometer to get straight line fringes.

A Michelson interferometer consists of a

Theory : Formation of circular fringes due to two point sources

Part 1: Alignment of the Michelson Interferometer :

Part 2: Estimation of wavelength of the laser :

6) Tabulate the readings and results as follows:

Number of Initial reading Final reading Mirror shift λ = 2D/N

7) Calculate the average value of the laser wavelength (in μm)

Part 3: Measurement of refractive index of the glass plate :

Number of Initial reading Final reading Angle moved Refractive index

➢ It must be kept in mind that in a Michelson interferometer, when one obtains a

➢ In 1905, Henry Poincaré proposed that just as an accelerating charge produces

➢ In 1915-16, through his “General Theory of Relativity”, Albert Einstein also

➢ The expected change in 4 km length is so small (~10-18 m) that it is of the order

➢ To effectively increase the length of

➢ There are two such identical LIGO

➢ The third LIGO laboratory is coming up in India at Aundha-Hingoli in Maharashtra

8) Why do we take fringe shift for 15 cycles instead of one or two?

General Information about He-Ne laser :

singlet energy levels arise. A subshell Collisions

like 2p , lacking only one electron from

a closed subshell, behaves as though it

Cross sectional view of a He-Ne laser (Curtsey: CVI Melles Griot)

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix I: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix II: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix II: Michelson Interferometer

Appendix II: Michelson Interferometer

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