Transverse modes of an apertured laser

A household microwave and lasers are examples of standing electromagnetic waves in a cavity. When two conducting metal plates are placed parallel at the nodal planes, it creates a cavity where standing waves are formed. The cavity between the two planes is analogous to a stretched string held at the points x = 0 and x = L. Here, the distance 'L' between the two planes must be an integer multiple of half of the wavelength. The wavelengths that satisfy this condition are given by:

Interference is a characteristic phenomenon exhibited by waves. When two electromagnetic waves interact with their peaks and troughs coinciding, a resulting wave with enhanced amplitude is produced. This is known as constructive interference. In this case, the two waves interacting are in phase with each other.

The starting point for expressing the modes of standing waves is understanding the boundary conditions that the waves must follow. The boundary conditions are derived from the physical understanding of how the standing waves are sustained, that is, how the vibrating particles of the medium behave at the boundaries imposed on them.
For a tube open at one end and closed at the other filled with air, the modes are such that there is always an antinode at the open end and a node at the closed end.

A close look at earthquakes provides evidence for the conditions appropriate for resonance, standing waves, and constructive and destructive interference. A building may vibrate for several seconds with a driving frequency matching the building's natural frequency of vibration; this produces a resonance that results in one building collapsing while the neighboring buildings do not. Often, buildings of a certain height are devastated, while other taller buildings remain intact. This phenomenon...

The existence of combined electric and magnetic fields that propagate through space as electromagnetic (EM) waves is the most significant prediction of Maxwell's equations. As Maxwell's equations hold in free space, the predicted electromagnetic waves do not require a medium for their propagation. An EM wave comprises an electric field, defined as the force per charge on a stationary charge, and a magnetic field, which is the force per charge on a moving charge.
The EM field is assumed to be a...

When a wave propagates from one medium to another, part of it may get reflected in the first medium, and part of it may get transmitted to the second medium. In such a case, the interface of the two mediums can be considered as a boundary that is neither fixed nor free.
Consider a scenario where a wave propagates from a string of low linear mass density to a string of high linear mass density. In such a case, the reflected wave is out of phase with respect to the incident wave, however the...