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 six projects in electrical circuits, one project in data sampling and computational spectral analysis, and three projects in optical circuits. 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 5 (2 February): Frequency domain analysis of circuits 1
This week's laboratory introduces digital sampling and spectral analysis. |
| Lecture notes 5 |
(0.2 Mb PDF) |
| Laboratory: Amplitude and phase response 1 |
(0.3 Mb PDF) |
| Analysis code in Matlab |
(0.1 Mb m-code) |
| Homework 4 |
(0.3 Mb PDF) |
Week 7 (16 February): Aquisition and analysis of data
This week has a holiday on Monday, so there is no lecture.
|
| Laboratory: Data acquisition (voice, etc.) and analysis challenge |
(3.3 Mb PDF) |
| Analysis code in Matlab |
(0.1 Mb m-code) |
| Spectral methods |
(5.3 Mb PDF) |
| Week 8 (23 February): The ABCDs of optics |
| Lecture notes 7 - Convolution |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
| Lecture notes 8 - ABCD matrices |
(2.2 Mb PDF) |
| Laboratory: Image formation ("4f" set-up for exercises 6.1 and 6.2; Full set-up (Ch 5) for exercises 6.4 and 6.5) |
(3.7 Mb PDF) |
| Camera interface code for Windows |
(18.9 Mb exe) |
| Homework 6 |
(0.1 Mb PDF) |
| Week 9 (2 March): Fourier optics 1 |
| Laboratory: Fourier optics 1 (Exercises 6.6 onward) |
(3.7 Mb PDF) |
| Week 10 (9 March): Fourier optics 2 |
| Laboratory: Fourier optics 2 (Exercises 6.6 onward) |
(3.7 Mb PDF) |
Auxillary materials
Equipment Manuals
