User talk:Zolot

Fabry–Pérot interferometer

Hi Zolot. I reverted your changes to Fabry–Pérot interferometer. Dichroic filters are emphasized in the article because they have a more direct connection to Fabry-Perot etalons than do other dielectric-coated structures. Interference-based optical coatings such as high reflection and anti-reflection coatings do not contain F-P etalons. They are similar, in that they operate by constructive and destructive interference between multiple reflected beams, but they are not the same thing. A dichroic passband filter, on the other hand, actually does consist of several F-P etalons in series. Each etalon is itself composed of a pair of dielectric high reflector coatings.

In case that isn't clear, consider a dielectric mirror. By itself, it is just a mirror. If you take two of them and align them parallel to one another, you have a Fabry-Perot interferometer. A dichroic passband filter integrates the two mirrors into a single structure, and may contain several pairs of mirrors stacked on top of one another.--Srleffler (talk) 22:24, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Srleffler. I was trying to make the references to dichroic mirrors more general. Right now it reads as if an advertiser for dichroic mirrors decided to insert statements about them into the FPI article. I'm particularly bothered by the "The most important common applications..." statement, which at very least needs citation but probably should just be removed. The statements about dichroic mirrors in the introduction is also off-topic in an article that is supposed to be about FPIs.

The statement "That is, dichroic filters are very thin sequential arrays of Fabry–Pérot interferometers, and are therefore characterised and designed using the same mathematics." is untrue on two levels: 1. dichroic filters are made by coating a substrate; only the coating can be described by the above statement. 2. The mathematics are clearly different if the spectral response is a dichroic filter as opposed to a series of etalon fringes.

If dichroics are truly the only optics with coated thin-layer etalons, this makes this particular application even less important. I think dichroic filters are important, and they have their own article, but they only deserve appropriate references from this article.

I altered my last revision to omit any reference to dielectric mirrors, but to reduce the discussion of dichroic filters to an appropriate level. Anyway, I'm done editing this article. Zolot (talk) 02:28, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm fine with the new edit. I agree that dichroic filters were a bit over-emphasized before. --Srleffler (talk) 05:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I was trying to make things more general, and obviously made it too general, so as to be off-topic.Zolot (talk) 15:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]