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    What Is Diffraction?: Single Slit Diffraction Formula

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    Diffraction of light causes it to spread out and illuminate areas in shadows. In single slit diffraction, light passing through a narrow slit interferes with itself, producing a distinctive pattern on a screen called a diffraction pattern. The pattern contains a bright central maximum surrounded by alternating dark and bright fringes. The angular width of the central maximum is given by the formula 2θ = 2λa, where λ is the wavelength of light and a is the slit width.

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    What Is Diffraction?: Single Slit Diffraction Formula

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    Chhoti Gas service
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    Diffraction of light causes it to spread out and illuminate areas in shadows. In single slit diffraction, light passing through a narrow slit interferes with itself, producing a distinctive pattern on a screen called a diffraction pattern. The pattern contains a bright central maximum surrounded by alternating dark and bright fringes. The angular width of the central maximum is given by the formula 2θ = 2λa, where λ is the wavelength of light and a is the slit width.

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    What is Diffraction

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    Diffraction of light causes it to spread out and illuminate areas in shadows. In single slit diffraction, light passing through a narrow slit interferes with itself, producing a distinctive pattern on a screen called a diffraction pattern. The pattern contains a bright central maximum surrounded by alternating dark and bright fringes. The angular width of the central maximum is given by the formula 2θ = 2λa, where λ is the wavelength of light and a is the slit width.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    42 views4 pages

    What Is Diffraction?: Single Slit Diffraction Formula

    Uploaded by

    Chhoti Gas service
    Diffraction of light causes it to spread out and illuminate areas in shadows. In single slit diffraction, light passing through a narrow slit interferes with itself, producing a distinctive pattern on a screen called a diffraction pattern. The pattern contains a bright central maximum surrounded by alternating dark and bright fringes. The angular width of the central maximum is given by the formula 2θ = 2λa, where λ is the wavelength of light and a is the slit width.

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    of 4

    What is Diffraction?

    Diffraction of light is defined as the bending of light around corners such that it spreads out and
    illuminates areas where a shadow is expected. In general, it is hard to separate diffraction from
    interference since both occur simultaneously. The silver lining which we witness in the sky is caused
    due to diffraction of light. When the sunlight passes through or encounters the cloud, a silver lining is
    seen in the sky.
    See below video to know about the Davisson Germer experiment and electron diffraction.

    When the double-slit in Young’s experiment is replaced by a single narrow slit, a broad
    pattern with a bright region at the centre is seen. On both sides of the centre, there are
    alternating dark and bright regions. The intensity becomes weaker away from the centre. In
    this article, we discuss the single slit diffraction of light in a detailed manner.

    What is Single Slit Diffraction?


    In the single-slit diffraction experiment, we can observe the bending phenomenon of light or
    diffraction that causes light from a coherent source to interfere with itself and produce a distinctive
    pattern on the screen called the diffraction pattern. Diffraction is evident when the sources are small
    enough that they are relatively the size of the wavelength of light. You can see this effect in the
    diagram below. For large slits, the spreading out is small and generally unnoticeable.

    Single Slit Diffraction Formula


    We shall assume the slit width a << D. x`D is the separation between slit and source
    We shall identify the angular position of any point on the screen by ϑ measured from the slit centre
    which divides the slit by
    lengths. To describe the pattern, we shall first see the condition for dark fringes. Also, let us divide
    the slit into zones of equal widths
    . Let us consider a pair of rays that emanate from distances  
    from each other as shown below.
    The path difference exhibited by the top two rays shown is:

    Remember that this is a calculation valid only if D is very large. For more details about the
    approximation check out our article on the Young’s Double Slit experiment.
    We can consider any number of ray pairings that start from a distance
    from one another such as the bottom two rays in the diagram. Any arbitrary pair of rays at a distance
    can be considered. We shall see the importance of this trick in a moment.
    For a dark fringe, the path difference must cause destructive interference; the path difference must
    be out of phase by
    . (λ is the wavelength)
    For the first fringe,
    For a ray emanating from any point in the slit, there exists another ray at a distance
    that can cause destructive interference.

    Thus, at θ = sin−1λa, there is destructive interference as any ray emanating from a point has a
    counterpart that causes destructive interference. Hence, a dark fringe is obtained.
    For the next fringe, we can divide the slit into 4 equal parts of a/4 and apply the same logic. Thus, for
    the second minima:
    Similarly, for the nth fringe, we can divide the slit into 2n parts and use this condition as:

    nλ = a sin θ

    The Central Maximum


    The maxima lie between the minima and the width of the central maximum is simply the distance
    between the 1st order minima from the centre of the screen on both sides of the centre.
    The position of the minima given by y (measured from the centre of the screen) is:

    tanθ≈θ≈y/D

    For small ϑ,
    sin θ≈θ 
    ⇒ λ = a sin θ≈aθ
    ⇒ θ = y/D = λa
    ⇒ y = λDa
    The width of the central maximum is simply twice this value
    ⇒ Width of central maximum = 2λDa
    ⇒ Angular width of central maximum = 2θ = 2λa

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