5. Conclusions
A modified Michelson interferometer employing a novel liquid chamber was developed for precisely and economically determining the refractive index of transparent liquids. The novel aspect of the interferometer was the design and construction of a liquid cell that allowed changes to be made in the optical pathlength without translating a mirror. Image processing software was used to record, analyze, and accurately count the interference fringes. The refractive indices of a collection of liquids including a sugar/water solution were measured to illustrate the technique. No consideration was given to the temperature dependence of the index which is about 0.00045/°C for most organic liquids and about 0.0001/°C for water [11]. Measurements typically took only a few minutes in a closed laboratory at 22 ±1 °C and any temporal change in the index would likely have shown up in the standard deviation.
Analyzing the shape of a single fringe was found to provide a quick measure of the index if the associated error can be tolerated, with the fringe counting method providing much lower error and better precision. The accuracy of both methods would greatly benefit from higher resolution translation stages—which would also allow automation of the measurement for real-time monitoring applications.
Acknowledgments
Partial funding was provided by the K Sciences of Huntsville, Alabama and we gratefully acknowledge K Sciences' director of research, Dr. Valentin Korman as the initial inspiration for the work presented here. We also acknowledge the data collecting assistance of J. Scout Gregory, a Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology physics student volunteer.
5. ConclusionsA modified Michelson interferometer employing a novel liquid chamber was developed for precisely and economically determining the refractive index of transparent liquids. The novel aspect of the interferometer was the design and construction of a liquid cell that allowed changes to be made in the optical pathlength without translating a mirror. Image processing software was used to record, analyze, and accurately count the interference fringes. The refractive indices of a collection of liquids including a sugar/water solution were measured to illustrate the technique. No consideration was given to the temperature dependence of the index which is about 0.00045/°C for most organic liquids and about 0.0001/°C for water [11]. Measurements typically took only a few minutes in a closed laboratory at 22 ±1 °C and any temporal change in the index would likely have shown up in the standard deviation.Analyzing the shape of a single fringe was found to provide a quick measure of the index if the associated error can be tolerated, with the fringe counting method providing much lower error and better precision. The accuracy of both methods would greatly benefit from higher resolution translation stages—which would also allow automation of the measurement for real-time monitoring applications.AcknowledgmentsPartial funding was provided by the K Sciences of Huntsville, Alabama and we gratefully acknowledge K Sciences' director of research, Dr. Valentin Korman as the initial inspiration for the work presented here. We also acknowledge the data collecting assistance of J. Scout Gregory, a Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology physics student volunteer.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..