Beam Splitters

These were very important for focusing the light and getting the two beams to come back together and form fringes. In order to focus we had to go through a repetitive process of lining up the two beams on the ceiling and then making sure they were in the same spot near the splitter, where the detector would be. This involved much adjusting of the beam splitter and some lesser adjustments of the mirrors.

Problems:

• The mounts had a stationary stage which the beam splitter moved in relation to by turning the knobs, when we could turn them. However, the stationary stage blocked the light if the angle was too great. This limited the amount by which we could adjust the beam splitters, making focusing much more difficult.