Michelson Interferometer and Haidinger Fringes

​
wavelength (nm)
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
position of mobile mirror (mm)
-0.25
-0.15
-0.05
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
focal length of imaging lens (cm)
10
20
30
40
The Michelson interferometer contains two perpendicular plane mirrors, which reflect monochromatic light into a beam splitter (a half-silvered mirror). The two reflected rays are then combined through an imaging lens to produce an interference pattern (Haidinger fringes) on a screen.
You can select the wavelength of the light, the focal length of the lens, and the position of the mobile mirror; 0 means that the distances of the two arms of the interferometer are equal, so that there are no interference fringes.

Details

The snapshots of three interference patterns were obtained for three sets of wavelengths, the position of the mobile mirror, and the focal length of the imaging lens:
Snapshot 1: 450 nm, -0.25 mm, 20 cm
Snapshot 2: 550 nm, 0.2 mm, 40 cm
Snapshot 3: 650 nm, 0.3 mm, 30 cm
​

References

[1] Wikipedia. "Michelson Interferometer." (Mar 11, 2016) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson_interferometer.

Permanent Citation

Bruno Bousquet
​
​"Michelson Interferometer and Haidinger Fringes"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/MichelsonInterferometerAndHaidingerFringes/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: March 14, 2016