With the aid of two mirrors in a Michelson arrangement, light is brought to interference. While moving one of the mirrors, the alterationin the interference pattern is observed and the wave length of the laser light determined.
Benefits
Learn about the measurement principle with which gravitational waves can be observed
Assemble your own interferometer using invidual optical components
Find out that even lasers have limited coherence length
Tasks
Construction of a Michelson interferometer using separate components.
The interferometer is used to determine the wavelength of the laser light.
The contrast function K is qualitatively recorded in order to determine the coherence length with it.