Microwave Optics Platform

Many manufacturers try to sell you 7-8 different devices to do 10 experiments. We have created an ever-expandable platform with better performance than any other in the world.

You’ll be able to do so much more than traditional microwave optics:

Measurements of absorption of various materials: human hand, sheets of perspex, polycarbonate, nylon, pvc, wood, cardboard, masonite, concrete etc.
Law of reflection by a conducting surface
Refraction: sharp focusing of the microwave beam by a Fresnel lens
Polarization: determination of the direction of the electric field vector by an array of close parallel (spaced less than half wavelength) metal wires. Malus-Law (square-cosine).
Reflection by a dielectric surface. Transmission as a function of the polarization and of the waveguide orientation. Brewster angle and polarization of the reflected and transmitted wave. Fast determination of the refractive index of various materiaals at the frequiency of 10 GHz.
Standing waves by means of a movable dielectric slab normal to the direction of propagation. Precise measurement of the wavelength.
Young double slit diffraction experiment with the detection of maxima and minima in the diffraction pattern. Measurement of the angles. By shutting up one of the slits (for example with the hand) the signal disappears also in the zero-th order strong maximum.
Waveguides. Rectangular and circular metallic waveguides of various dimensions and their properties. Cut-off dimensions. Polarization properties.
Measurement of the electric field distribution inside a rectangular slotted metallic waveguide an a special envelope detector probe. It is possible to determine the minima and maxima of the voltage standing waves of the wavelength of the electromagnetic field inside the guide, of the phase velocity which is always greater then c.
Waveguides. Dielectric waveguides of various materials: PVC, acrylic, and different shapes. Strips of various width and thickness, rods, square, tubular. Demonstration of the absence of cut-off dimensions. Attenuation.
Evanescent wave in a dielectric waveguide. Measurement of the exponential decrease of the intensity vs. the distance from the guide by means of a diode probe, a micrometric translation stage and a millivoltmeter.
Fabry-Perot interferometer and precise measurement of wavelength. Sliding the moving mirror an high contrast of the fringes is easily found, which allows the precise determination of the positions of the minima and consequently of the wavelength.
Faraday effect. A neat demonstration of the rotation of the polarization plane, which may reach a giant 90°, by a small ferrite rod in a magnetic field of the order of tens of Gauss.

Base platform

The first component of our Microwave Optics Platform are the base with double protractor and the related mounting accessories:

MW base platform

Transmitter and receiver

On the base, you can mount our transmitter and receiver. They feature a unique dielectric antenna with high directionality and audio input/output for ease of connectivity. Each unit also has an included protractor on the back and can rotate 180 degrees.

Optics

We have a broad range of optics that can be mounted on our base unit with the included sliders and vices.

Waveguides

We have a unique range of both traditional waveguides and dielectric strip waveguides. The traditional waveguides are slotted, enabling to examine the internal fields with our envelope detector probe.