Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:50:23.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Review of Fabry and Perot discoveries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Y.P. Georgelin  and
P. Amram
Y.P. Georgelin
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Marseille, France
P. Amram
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Marseille, France

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

It is a great pleasure for us, daily Fabry-Perot interferometer (hereafter referred to as FP) users, to pay homage to the genius inventors of the FP. Each day we are still bewildered by the power of this instrument which mainly consists of two pieces of half-silvered glass. Even if equations of physics are perfectly able to describe multiple-beam interferences (hereafter referred to as MBI), something magic remains in our mind.

We will tackle this paper from a historical point of view. As any discovery, the invention of the FP did not occur just by chance from nowhere. As pointed out by Connes (1986) the invention of the multiple-beam interferometer may be understood as having proceeded from the fortunate convergence of two independent developments: (i) During 2 centuries, MBI has been observed and even computed but its specific and pregnant feature, the fringe sharpening, was not understood before Fabry’s thesis, (ii) A long production of mirrors, leading to the semi-transparent silver film.

Type
7. Historical Appendix
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 149: Tridimensional Optical Spectroscopic Methods in Astrophysics , 1995 , pp. 382 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1995

References

Basic Bibliography

Bouchareine, P.- J. Optics, 1986, 17, 1, 35–42 - “Les travaux de métrologie de C. Fabry”.Google Scholar
Connes, P.- J. Optics, 1986, 17, 1, 5–28 - “The history of multiple-beam interference”.Google Scholar
Courtès, G.- J. Optics, 1986, 17, 1, 29–34 - “Applications à I’astrophysique des méthodes interferentielles ...”.Google Scholar
De Broglie, L. ApJ 64, 209, 1946 - “La vie et l’oeuvre de Charles Fabry (éloge funèbre).”Google Scholar
Duffieux, , Applied Optics, 8, 1969 - “Origine des appareils interférentiels à ondes multiples.”Google Scholar
Fabry, C., 1926 - “La vie et l’oeuvre d’Alfred Perot (éloge funèbre).”Google Scholar
Hernandez, G. - “Fabry-Perot Interferometers” - Cambridge Studies in Modern Optics (1986).Google Scholar
Vaughan, J.M. - “The Fabry-Perot Interferometer History, Theory, Practice and Applications”. Ed. Adam Hilger, 1989 Google Scholar