Young TIM: A wave-optics simulator with slightly special powers

TL;DR

Young TIM is an interactive wave-optics simulator designed for education and research, featuring unique capabilities like creating 3D anaglyphs of optical beams, enhancing undergraduate physics labs and learning experiences.

Contribution

The paper introduces Young TIM, a novel wave-optics simulation tool with unique features such as 3D anaglyph creation, tailored for educational and research purposes.

Findings

Effective for undergraduate teaching and research

Enables visualization of wave phenomena in 3D

Supports numerical experiments in wave optics

Abstract

Wave optics is a prominent part of the undergraduate physics curriculum, and many undergraduate labs contain experiments on wave optics. In our 3rd-year undergraduate lab, we run numerical simulations alongside the experiments (and when pandemic restrictions did not allow students into the lab, those simulations replaced some experiments). We use Young TIM, an interactive wave-optics simulator designed to be a research tool that can also be used for the dissemination of our research and for education. It has novel and unique features, including the ability to create an anaglyph of the beam as it would be seen in 3D by a binocular, probably misguided, observer staring into the beam. Here we describe how to use Young TIM, and we describe several possible numerical experiments suitable for undergraduate teaching.