Speed of Light

Brett Schuessler
Unveristy of Hawaii at Manoa
Physics 480L: Tom Browder
brettsch@hawaii.edu
In this lab we measured the speed of light experimentally by examining the travel time of light
pulses over a known distance. Several thousand data points were taken and three fitting methods
were employed: Two single gaussians, a double gaussian, and leading edge linear fits. Results
obtained were (2.92 0.08)108 m/s, (2.91 0.08)108 m/s, and (2.9 0.11)108 m/s respectively - all
within 1 of the defined value: c = 299,792,458 m/s.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

The experimental setup was as follows (Figure 1):

A long, light-isolated tube with a pulse LED and a
PMT on one end and a mirror at the opposite end.
Near the end with the LED and PMT a Fresnel lens
partially reflects and transmits the pulse from the
LED resulting in two PMT signals, one from the
photons reflected off the Fresnel lens initially and
one from the photons reflected off the mirror and
re-transmitted through the Fresnel lens. The time
difference between these two PMT signals is therefore the time interval during which the light travels
the distance from the lens to the mirror and back.
We analyzed these signals using the combination of
a Time to Amplitude Converter (TAC) that converts
the time difference between two received signals to
a proportional voltage amplitude, and a Multichannel Analyzer (MCA) connected the software package
Maestro this takes the voltage amplitudes from the
TAC and assigns them a channel number proportional to the output. This allows us to calculate the
time interval between pulses by a proportional relationship with the channels triggered in the MCA.

ANALYTICAL PROCEDURE

The MCA was first calibrated with pulses of

known time delay using a delay box to determine the
relationship between channel number and temporal
pulse separation (Figure 2). During our calibration,
an error was made causing the data for a time delay
above 61s to be shifted down by a constant channel number, resulting in the initial exclusion of the
calibration data above that time delay. However, after analysis it is apparent that the exclusion of the
data outside of the relevant range (with a 22.64m

travel distance, we expect about a 75ns travel time)

produces much more accurate results. Even with the
fact that the calibration over the relevant range only
contains 3 data points the slope error is only about
twice as large as the 13 data points contained in the
pre-61ns range (0.304% error vs. 0.770% error). In
light of these results, the analysis that follows is dependent on the calibration within the relevant range
despite the the low quantity of data available.

FIG. 1. Experimental Schematic: 1) LED, 2) Fresnel

Lens, 3)Mirror, 4) Pulse Generator, 5) TAC (Time Amplitude Converter), 6) MCA (Multi-Channel Analyzer),
7) MAESTRO Program

From the fit we obtain a linear equation for the

channel number N related to the pulse separation
t0 :
N (t0 ) = (9.38 + / 0.072)t0 (31 + / 5) (1)
The channel difference N corresponds to a travel
time t of:

t =

N
(ns)
(9.38 + / 0.072)

(2)

FIG. 2. MCA TAC Calibration

FIG. 3. MCA Counts Histogram

RESULTS

The results for each fitting method are presented

in Table 1, all fit methods producing results within
1 of the defined value:

The path length between the Fresnel lens and the

mirror used for calculations was L =(10.44 +/- 0.05)
m (footnote). The experimentally determined speed
of light is obtained from:

cexp =

2L
t

c= 299,792,458 m/s.
Fit t (ns)
cexp (m/s)
I 71.5 1.8 (2.92 0.08)108
II 71.7 1.8 (2.91 0.08)108
III 69.9 2.5 (2.99 0.11)108

(3)

TABLE I. Fit I: Two single Gaussians, Fit II: Double

Gaussian, Fit III: Leading edges

The data obtained from the MCA (Figure 3) was

fit using two single gaussians and a double gaussian,
where the channel difference corresponding to travel
time is taken between the two peaks. Additionally,
the leading-edge of each peak in the data set was
linearly fit, where the travel time was taken to be
the difference between the two channel number axis
intercepts.

The most accurate result was obtained using the

leading edge fit method; this in combination with
the relative precision of the gaussian methods suggest the peak amplitude difference is a less reliable
method of measuring pulse timing differences using
this particular TAC MCA setup.