Physics 4L (39L)
Overview of the Course
This laboratory course is the "beta" version of what will become Physics 4L, the laboratory course to accompany the Physics 4 series (4A-4E) for majors. The course consists of five projects in electrical circuits, four projects in optical circuits, and one project in data sampling and computational spectral analysis. A conceptual goal is to understand the same phenomena in real space and in Fourier space. This course was initiated by Prof. David Kleinfeld and designed in collaboration with Mr. Sincheng Huang.
The course consists of a one hour lecture (Mondays at 12:00 PM to 12:50 PM in Mayer 2702) and a three hour laboratory (Tuesdays at 11:00 AM to 1:50 PM in Mayer 3574 (electrical) or 3722 (optical).
For Winter 2026, we were pleased to have Mr. Sincheng Huang and Mr. Phillip Neill as the class teaching assistants.
All Laboratory Reports and Homework should be sent as PDFs to Mr.Neill. They are due by Monday, 8:00 AM of the following week.
| Diagnostic Exam |
| This diagnostic is used only to help set the pace of the course. Please do not use external resources. |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
Running schedule for Winter 2026
Week 3 (19 January): Analysis of resistor-capacitor circuits
This week has a holiday on Monday, so there is no lecture.
|
| Laboratory: RC circuits in time domain |
(1.5 Mb PDF) |
| RC convolution with external drive |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
| Week 4 (26 January): Temporal domain analysis of resonant circuits |
| Lecture notes 4 |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
| Laboratory: RL circuits and RLC circuits in the time domain |
(x.x Mb PDF) |
| RL time-domain analysis |
(0.2 Mb PDF) |
| Convolution integral in pictures |
(0.5 Mb PDF) |
| Week 5 (2 February): Frequency domain analysis of resonant circuits 1 |
| Lecture notes 5 |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
| Laboratory: Amplitude and phase response |
(X.X Mb PDF) |
| Another view of convolution |
(X.X Mb PDF) |
| Week 6 (9 February): Frequency domain analysis of circuits 2 |
| Lecture notes 6 |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
| Laboratory: Bandwidth, period-doubling |
(x.x Mb PDF) |
Week 7 (16 February): Aquisition and analysis of data
This week has a holiday on Monday, so there is no lecture.
|
| Laboratory: Acquisition and numerical analysis data |
(xxx Mb PDF) |
| Spectral methods |
(5.3 Mb PDF) |
| Week 8 (23 February): The ABCDs of optics |
| Laboratory: Image formation (Chapter 6.1, Exercises 1-3) |
(15.2 Mb PDF) |
| ABCD matrices |
(2.3 Mb PDF) |
| Week 9 (2 March): Fourier optics 1 |
| Laboratory: Fourier optics (Chapters 5.4 and 6.2, Exercises 4-6) |
(15.2 Mb PDF) |
| Week 10 (9 March): Fourier optics 2 |
| Laboratory: Image formation in optics (Chapter 6.3, Exercises 7-23) |
(15.2 Mb PDF) |
Data Sheets
Equipment Manuals
Auxillary materials
