Photonics and Optics Fundamentals, fall 2024

This is an advanced-level course; in Finnish we'd say "syventäviä opintoja". See below for the background you should have.

After completing the course, the student will be able to:

• Understand the importance of light and photonics
• Understands the nature of light as waves and photons.
• Understands the polarization of light.
• Understands how one can control the polarization of light with different components.
• Understands emission, absorption, and scattering of light.
• Understands reflection and refraction of light.
• Can calculate the direction and the magnitude of reflected and refracted light for a planar interface.
• Understands the interference of light.
• Understands the double-slit experiment.
• Understands the principle of and interferometer.
• Can calculate the directions of the diffraction orders after the diffraction grating.
• Can calculate the field after a simple aperture system.
• Understands the connection between the geometrical and wave approach of light propagation.
• Can analyze light in simple optical components like lenses and mirrors.
• Understands imaging in a simple optical system.
• Can calculate imaging in a simple lens or mirror system.
• Understands how one can characterize the quality of imaging.
• Knows what are the aberrations in an imaging system.

You should know the following before coming to this course; but there are sections in the course material that you can use to update your knowledge on those topics:

• Basics of mechanics like energy, potential, and momentum.
• Basics of linear algebra and matrices.
• Basics of electromagnetism.
• Basic calculation with complex numbers and complex functions.
• Basics of differential and integral calculation.
• Basics of trigonometry.
• Vectors and calculations with those.
• Also it is helpful to understand the basics of quantum mechanics like the quantization of energy.

Simply put, if you can deal with intermediate-level university physics ("aineopinnot"), you'll be just fine.

In Finnish, this course is called "Fotoniikan ja optiikan perusteet".