Physics 102 Lab 9: Using The Spectrometer To Measure The Spectrum of He

Physics 102 Lab 9: Using the spectrometer to measure the spectrum of He
Dr. Timothy C. Black

Spring, 2006
The spectrometer: The spectrometer is shown in gure 1. It consists of a collimator tube, a telescope,
a diraction grating, and a circular measuring platter. The collimator tube holds an aperture at one end
that limits the light coming from the source to a narrow rectangular slit. A lens at the other end focuses the
image of the slit onto the face of the prism. The telescope magnies the light exiting the prism and focuses
it onto the eyepiece. The diraction grating allows you to separate the incident light into its constituent
wavelengths. Recall from last weeks lab that the relationship between the wavelength of the incident light
and the angle at which a diraction maximum appears is given by
d sin = m (1)
where d =
1mm
600 lines
= 1.67 10
6
m/line is the grating spacing, and m is the order of the maximum. In this
lab we will be using the rst order diraction maxima. The measuring platter permits you to read o the
angles at which the collimator and the telescope are located.
FIG. 1: The spectrometer
The atomic glow-discharge lamp: Your light source for this experiment is a helium atomic glow-discharge
plasma lamp. It works by sending a high-voltage through a dilute elemental gas. The high-voltage creates a
plasma in which electrons are excited from low energy orbitals to higher energy orbitals. When the electrons
drop back down into the low energy orbitals, they emit light. Figure 2 shows both the undiracted light
emitted by the helium lamp (salmon-colored band on the left), and the discrete atomic spectrum emitted by
the lamp (series of lines on the right).
There are two important things to bear in mind regarding this light source:
1. The light spectrum emitted from a glow-discharge lamp is discrete, meaning that instead of emitting a
continuous band of colors from red to blue, as an ordinary light does, only very narrow bands of color
are emitted by the atomic lamps, with large gaps in between the emitted wavelengths.
2. THIS LAMP RUNS ON HIGH VOLTAGE5000 VOLTS, TO BE EXACT. There is no reason for
you to touch it. Dont.
FIG. 2: A helium plasma lamp: The undiracted light emitted by the tube, visible to the naked eye, is shown on the
left of the gure. The atomic lines, as seen through a diraction grating, are shown on the right.
The spectrometers vernier scale: The vernier scale on the spectrometer is not the same as the vernier
scale that you used with the calipers last semester. Those vernier scales divided the lines into 10
ths
, essentially
giving you one additional decimal of precision. The vernier scale on the spectrometer provides precision up
to one arc minute of angular measure. It does this by dividing each half-degree into 30 parts. The procedure
for using the spectrometer vernier is as follows:
First nd the angle to the nearest
1
2
c
irc; i.e., the half-angle marker which is just less than the rst line
on the vernier scale. (The rst line is actually the 0
th
line). Call this angle
1
.
Find the line on the vernier scale that best lines up with one of the lines on the angle platter, and
count o which line this is, taking the rst (leftmost) line as zero. There are a total of 30 lines on the
vernier scale. Let us say that the n
th
line on the vernier scale lines up best with one of the lines on
the angle platter.
Each line on the vernier corresponds to
1
60
th
of a degree. Hence, the measured angle ought to be
=
1
+
n
60
.
When recording the measured angle, note that your precision is limited to
1
60
th
c
irc. The number 60 has
two signicant gures, so at most, your correction to
1
is valid to two signicant gures.
Figures 3A and 3B depict two examples of using the angular vernier scale. In the example shown in gure 3A,
the zeroth line is just greater than
1
= 51.0
. The 20
th
line on the vernier lines up best with one of the
lines on the angle platter, so the correction is equal to =
20
60
. The measured angle is therefore
=
1
+ = 51.0 +
20
60
= 51.33
In the example shown in gure 3B, the zeroth line is just greater than
1
= 56.5
. The 3
rd
line on the vernier
lines up best with one of the lines on the angle platter, so the correction is equal to =
3
60
. The measured
angle is therefore
=
1
+ = 56.5 +
3
60
= 56.55
Figure 3A Figure 3B
FIG. 3: Two examples of using the angular vernier scale
You will be provided with magnifying glasses, which you will need in order to properly determine which line
on the vernier scale best aligns with a line on the angle platter. Take great care to look directly down onto
the scale, not from one side or the other, as this will introduce a parallax error.
Procedural Steps
Measuring the wavelengths of the helium spectrum
1. Locate and record the telescope angles () for the rst order interference maxima for ve dierent
colors that you are condent that you can identify in your atomic spectrum. Measure the angles
r
and
l
at which the lines appear on both the right and left side of the forward direction and calculate
= |
r
l
2
|. It is this angle that you will use in the grating equation to determine the wavelength.
2. Find the wavelengths of these spectral lines by using the grating equationEquation1with m = 1,
and =

.
3. Using the table of known helium wavelengths given in table I, match your measured wavelengths to
their most probable partners in the table. Use the relative intensities and separation of the lines to
guide you. Note that not all the tabulated wavelengths may appear in your spectrum. They may be
outside your range of vision, or so close that they overlap, or too weak to see.
4. Find the fractional deviations between your measured wavelengths, and the wavelengths given in table I
of those lines you designate as their most probable partners.
Color Wavelength Relative
[nm] Intensity
violet 388.9 1000
violet 396.5 50
violet 402.6 70
blue-violet 438.8 30
dark blue 447.1 100
blue 471.3 40
blue-green 492.2 50
green 501.5 100
yellow 587.6 1000
red 667.8 100
red 706.5 70
TABLE I: The wavelengths of a helium discharge in the visible spectrum

Physics 102 Lab 9: Using The Spectrometer To Measure The Spectrum of He

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Physics 102 Lab 9: Using The Spectrometer To Measure The Spectrum of He

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Physics 102 Lab 9: Using The Spectrometer To Measure The Spectrum of He

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Physics 102 Lab 9: Using the spectrometer to measure the spectrum of He

Dr. Timothy C. Black

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.