Optics Discovery Kit

The Education Council of the Optical Society of America prepared this discovery kit to introduce students to modern Optical Science and Engineering. Working with member industrial firms, the OSA selected high quality optical components and prepared detailed instructions.

Kit includes: 3 lenses, 1 fresnel lens, 1 mirror, 1 hologram, 1 optical illusion slide, 1 diffraction grating, 1 meter of optical fiber, 2 polarizers, 4 color filters, and instructions for 11 experiments.

3 lenses (A, B, C)

Lens A is a double convex lens with a long focal length. Lens B is also a double convex lens, but it has a shorter focal length. Lens C is a double concave lens. Cameras use lenses to focus images on film. Film strip and movie projectors have movable lenses that can form a sharp image on the screen. Your eye is a lens. The image on the back of your eye is upside down, but your brain interprets it as right side up.

Fresnel Lens (flat plastic with circular ridges)

Augustin Fresnel was a French scientist who first developed this type of light-weight lens for lighthouses. It is a flat lens, but one side is like the bulge of a regular lens which has been collapsed down into a series of rings. Each ring has a curvature that is the same as the curve of a regular lens with the same focal length.

Polarisers (remove plastic coating)

Most light is polarized in some direction. Polarizers transmit only that light which is oriented in a certain way. If you turn polarizers right-angles to each other, they will transmit little or no light. Polarizers are used in some sunglasses to cut down the light seen from reflected surfaces. They are also used by engineers studying models of buildings and machine parts to discover any weaknesses in design before the real thing is built.

Diffraction grating

It is possible to make light separate into a band of colors (called a SPECTRUM) by shining it through a DIFFRACTION GRATING. A diffraction grating is a rather ordinary looking piece of plastic which actually has thousands (!) of straight grooves lined up across its surface. The effect is similar to a prism, except you may see more than one spectrum (different 'orders'). The Color Filters (red, yellow, green, blue) are used with this.

Optical fibre

Optical fibers are being used extensively in the telecommunications world; in fact, most of our phone lines have been replaced by optical fibers. Included in the Kit is a small section of fiber. Look through one end of the fiber while you shine a light into the other end.

Flexible mirror

The mirror in the Optics Discovery Kit is made of a special material called mylar which has been aluminized, much like regular glass mirrors. This mirror, however, can be bent into both a convex and a concave shape.

Hologram

Holograms are able to produce 3-dimensional pictures from a flat piece of film. Some holograms can show all sides of an object on one piece of film. They can be used to make very life-like images of many things. Engineers can make holograms of machine parts to test for wear and weak places. Holograms are used on some credit cards to make it difficult for counterfeiters to make fake ones.