A teaching laboratory experiment is described which uses a basic Michelson interferometer arrangement to make fast and accurate measurements of the group velocity dispersion of an optical material using a method based on recording white-light fringes. We present a brief analysis of the theory behind the technique and describe two example measurements, one of the material dispersion of a KTP crystal and another of the reflectivity dispersion of a silver-coated mirror. Details are also given of our implementation of the data analysis using the MATLAB programming environment
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© 2000 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2000
American Association of Physics Teachers
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