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Ch36 DIFRACTION

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24 views3 pages

Ch36 DIFRACTION

Uploaded by

Frank Moses
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter 36: Diffraction

- Light can bend around an obstacle due to wave characteristics


- Interference effects from combining many light waves => diffraction

36.1 Fresnel and Fraunhofer Diffraction


- According to geometric objects, when an opaque object creates a shadow, the shadow lines are sharp
and no light is in the shadow area
o Not true b/c of the wave nature of light
- Light strikes a barrier that has an aperture or edge: diffraction
- Diffraction patterns not seen from ordinary light sources b/c u need monochromatic light from a
point source
- Diffraction patterns can be analyzed using Huygens’ principle
o Every pt of a wave front can be considered the source of 2ndary wavelets that propagate in all
directions at a speed = to propagation of original wave
o Position of wave front at any time later is the envelope of the 2ndary waves
o Resultant displacement: combine individual displacements of 2ndary waves, using superposition
principle + accounting for their amplitudes + relative phases
- Fresnel diffraction = near-field diffraction
o Point source and screen (on which pattern appears) are close to obstacle forming the diffraction
pattern
- Fraunhofer diffraction = far-field diffraction
o Source, obstacle, + screen far enuf away that all lines from source and obstacle can be considered
parallel
- Process that causes diffraction is present in the propagation of every wave
o Whenever part of a wave is blocked = diffraction resulting from interference among remaining
parts of wave
- No fundamental difference b/w diffraction + interference
o Interference = sm # of sources
o Diffraction = continuous distribution of Huygens’ wavelets or lg # of sources or apertures
o Both phenomena governed by same principles (*Huygens’)

36.2 Diffraction from a Single Slit


- Diffraction pattern formed by plane-wave (parallel-ray) monochromatic light from a long narrow slit
- Beam spreads out vertically after passing thru slit -> bands of light
- Width (w) = narrowness of slit - inversely proportional to width of central bright band
o Horizontal dimension of slit is large
- According to Huygens’, each element of area of the slit opening is a source of 2ndary waves
- Can calculate resultant intensity on a point on a screen by adding components from individual
wavelets, accounting for phases and amplitudes
- Assume screen is rly far from slit -> consider rays to point on screen as parallel
- Consider 2 narrow strips, 1 at top of slit + 1 at center

Path dif = (a/2) sin


a = width of aperture = slit width
 = angle b/w the perpendicular to the slit and line from center of slit to point

1
- Every strip of light in top half has a counterpart in bottom half = cancels out (out of phase)
- Destructive interference when path dif = not whole 
(a/2)sin = + /2 sin = + /a
- + means that ther are symmetrical fringes above and below center of pattern

sin = m (m = + 1, + 2,…
a
dark fringes in single-slit diffraction
- b/w dark fringes = light fringes
- sin = 0 = bright band = in phase central bright fringe is wider than other bright fringes
- small angle approximation: sin ~  (radians)
 = m  in radians
A

x = distance from slit to screen ym= vertical distance from mth dark band from center of pattern

ym = x m 
a ym<< x
- minimum/minima = dark fringes

36.4 Multiple Slits


- several very narrow slits

Two Slits of Finite Width


- Slits have finite width = narrow compared to 
o Assume that light from each slit spreads out uniformly in all directions from slit
- If slits have finite width, peaks in 2-slit interference pattern are modulated by the single-slit
diffraction pattern characteristic of the width of each slit
- Single-slit Diffraction minima (md) Double-slit interference maxima (mi)
- Finite width of 2 slits -> superimpose the 2 patterns (single-slit
diffraction pattern + 2 narrow slit pattern) = multiply the 2
intensities at each point
o The 2 slit peaks are in the same positions as before, but
intensity is modulated by single-slit pattern = acts as an
“envelope” for the intensity function

I = I0cos2(/2) [sin (/2) / (/2)]2 two slits of finite width

 = 2d sin  = 2a sin


 

- Move away from ventral bright maximum of 2-slit pattern = intensity of maxima decreases
- “missing” maxima whenever d = (integer)a

36.5 The Diffraction Grating


- Increasing # slits, while keeping spacing b/w slits constant, gives interference patterns in which
maxima are in same positions, but progressively sharper and narrower than just w/ 2 slits
o Sharp maxima = angular position and  are more precisely measured

2
- Diffraction grating = array of many parallel slits, all w/ same width a and spaced equal distances d
b/w centers
- Transmission grating = interference pattern is formed by the light that is transmitted thru the slits
- Grating spacing (d) = spacing b/w centers of adjacent slits
- Plane monochromatic light is incident normally on the grating
- Assume far-field conditions (Fraunjofer) -> rays are parallel

dsin = m (m = +1, +2,… [1st order lines, 2nd order,…])


intensity maxima for multiple slits

- Increase sharpness of maxima as # slits increases


- Grating of thousands of slits -> pattern is a series of sharp lines at angles determined by the eqn
o White light – distribution of wavelengths -> long  lie at larger angles
- Reflection grating = array of equally spaced ridges on a reflective screen
o Reflected light has max intensity at angles where phase dif b/w waves reflected from adjacent
ridges is m(2)
o light is incident normally on reflection grating, reflected angles for intensity maxima given by
eqn above
o butterfly wings, CD rainbow

Grating Spectrographs
- spectroscopy/spectrometry = measure spectrum of light emitted by a source
- light incident on a grating is dispersed into a spectrum
- the angles of deviation of the maxima are used to calculate wavelength
o many slits – sharp maxima – precise angle measurement
- astronomy application
o light thru sun’s atm – certain wavelengths are absorbed
o spectrum of sunlight produced by diffraction grating has dark absorption lines
o dif atoms/ions absorb dif wavelengths -> deduce chemical composition

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