Lab Experiments 233

Experiment-197 S

LASER DIFFRACTION USING A RULER

Dr D Sudhakar Rao
Department of Physics, St. Aloysius College, Light House Hill, Mangalore-575001. INDIA.
Email: sr23us@Yahoo.com

Abstract

Using a He-Ne laser and an engraved scale, spots associated with different order
diffraction are observed. By measuring the separations between these spots and
varying the distance between the screen and the scale, wavelength of the laser
light is determined. The ruler used acts like a reflection grating.

Introduction
Diffraction refers to various phenomena associated with wave propagation, such as bending,
spreading and interference of waves passing by an object or an aperture that interrupts the
wave propagation. It occurs with any type of wave, including sound waves, water waves,
electromagnetic waves such as visible light, x-rays and radio waves. A diffraction grating is
an optical device with a surface covered by a regular pattern of parallel lines, typically with a
distance between the lines comparable to the wavelength of the light. Such gratings can be
either transparent or reflective. A fundamental property of gratings is that the angle of
deviation of the diffracted beams depends on the wavelength of the incident light. When a
beam is incident on a grating with an angle θi, it is diffracted into several beams. The beam
that corresponds to direct transmission or specular reflection in the case of a reflection
grating, is called the zero order beam and is denoted m = 0. The other orders correspond to
diffraction angles which are represented by non-zero integers, m. For a groove period d, such
as the separation between the markings on a ruler and an incident wavelengh λ, the grating
equation gives the value of the diffracted angle θm in the order m as [1]

d (sin θm+ sin θi ) = mλ …1

‘m’ can be positive or negative, resulting in diffracted orders on both sides of the zero order
beam. The grating equation shows that the angles of the diffracted orders depend only on the
period of the grooves and not on their shape. By controlling the cross-sectional profile of the
grooves, it is possible to concentrate most of the diffracted energy in a particular order for a
given wavelength.

The space between the markings etched on a metal ruler may act as a reflection grating. A
diffraction pattern is formed when light waves striking adjacent spaces interfere with one
another as shown in Figure-1. Constructive interference occurs when the path difference for
the two waves is an integral number of wavelengths i.e., nλ, where n is an integer and λ is the
wavelength of the light as shown in Figure-2.

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Figure-1: Reflection of two light rays and formation interference spot

Figure-2: Reflected rays and their path differences

The path difference ∆D = d (sin θi-sin θm) …2

The angles θi and θm are difficult to measure directly, but they can be calculated from the
measured quantities. Figure-3 shows the formation of diffraction pattern. φo is the angle
between the horizontal and the zero order spot and φm is the angle between the horizontal and
the mth order spot.

Ym m t h order spo t

Y1 1 st order spot
m

m Y0 0 t h o rder sp ot
1
Laser
i
M et al scale 0
D

Figure-3: Laser reflection from scale and formation of reflection spots

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yo y
With tan φo = and tan φm = m
D D
the values of θi and θm can be expressed in terms of φo and φm as

φ
θi = 90- o
2

φm
θm =90-
2
which gives,
φ φ
n λ = d [sin (90- o ) –sin (90- m )
2 2

φ φ
or mλ= d[cos o -cos m ] …3
2 2

An alternative expression can be found by expressing the angle in radians and using the
approximation

x2
Cos = 1-
2!

Which is the first term of a series expansion for cos (x). Therefore, the approximate equation
can be written as:

 φ2   φ2  d 2
mλ= 1 − o  − 1 − m  =
   2 
φ m − φ o2
2 2
( )
   
yo y
Since for small angles, tanθ ≅θ tan φo ≈ φo = , and tan φm ≈ φm = m . Substituting in
D D
(2) we can write,

mλ =
2 D2
d
(y 2m − yo2 )
Wavelength of the light used

λ=
d (y 2m − yo2 ) …4
2 D2 m

Apparatus Used
He-Ne laser, engraved foot scale, White screen, meter scale. The complete experimental
setup is shown in Figure-4.

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236 Lab Experiments

Figure-4: Experimental set-up for laser reflection grating

Experimental Procedure
1. Laser is mounted on its stand and placed on a table about 3-4 meters from a white
wall. A 2′X1′ size laminate sheet is used as screen, which is placed very close to the
wall.

2. An engraved metal scale is placed horizontally at 6-9 inches from the laser source as
shown in the experimental set-up in Figure-4. At this position the scale makes a small
angle with the laser beam.

3. Distance between two graduation markings on the scale (Distance between the
markings on the ruler) d = 1 mm is noted

4. By adjusting the position of the scale the laser beam is focused on the engraved
millimeter graduations of the scale as shown in Figure-5.

5. The position of the scale is adjusted to get well-defined diffraction pattern as shown in
Figure-5.

6. The various spots in the diffraction pattern are identified with reference to Figure-3
and Yo, Y1, Y2 …Ym spots are marked on the laminate sheet screen using a permanent
marker pen. The brightest spot in diffraction pattern is the 0th order spot. (Second spot
from bottom in Figure-6).

The exact distance between the screen and the laser beam on the scale is measured.
This is the distance D = 2 m

7. The metal scale is now removed and the direct laser beam position on the screen is
also marked. All the distances are measured with respect to direct ray.

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 Lab Experiments 237

8. Now the laminate screen is containing various positions of the spots marked on it is
removed and measurements are made.

Distance of the 0th order spot from the direct ray position Y0 = 0.35 m

Figure-5: Laser spot falling on the engraved portion of the metal scale

9. Distances of between direct ray position and all the diffraction spots marked on the
laminate sheet are measured as shown in Figure-7. The readings obtained are
tabulated in Table-1.

Figure-6: Diffraction pattern Bright Spot (second from bottom is Y0)

10. Wavelength of the laser used is calculated using the equation-4 for different order
diffraction spots.

λ=
d (y 2m − yo2 ) = 1x10 (
-3
0.357 2 - 0.35 2
) = 0.000125(0.004949) = 618nm
2 D2 m 2x2 2 1

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11. The experiment is repeated by changing the distance between screen and scale
position (D). The readings obtained are tabulated in Tables 2 and 3 for D =3 and D =
4m respectively.

Observations
Table-1
Order (m) Distance ym (m) Wavelength (nm)
1 0.357 618.6
2 0.364 624.7*
3 0.3705 615.4
4 0.377 613.4
5 0.3835 614.3
6 0.390 616.7
Average λ 615.8
Diffraction spot distances and wavelength for D=2m
* not taken while averaging

Table-2
Order (m) Distance ym (m) Wavelength (nm)
1 0.4585 628.1*
2 0.470 610.7
3 0.482 618.7
4 0.493 612.9
5 0.504 612.2
6 0.515 613.9
Average λ 613.6
Diffraction spot distances and wavelength for D=3m
Distance of the 0th order, Y0 = 0.446 m

Table-3
Order (m) Distance ym (m) Wavelength (nm)
1 0.5675 611.1
2 0.585 620.7
3 0.6015 617.7
4 0.618 620.5
5 0.634 621.6
6 0.649 618.2
Average λ 618.3
Diffraction spot distances and wavelength for D=4m
Distance of the 0th order, Y0 = 0.55 m

Figure-7: Laser diffraction spots marked for measurements.

Spot D (rightmost) is direct ray position

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Results
The wavelength determined are tabulated in Table-4
Table-4
Distance between screen and scale D (m) Wavelength λ(nm)
2 615.8 Standard
3 613.6 value
4 618.3 632
Average wavelength of He-Neon Laser 615.9
Experimental results
References
[1] R S Sirohi, A course of Experiments with He-Ne Laser, Page-48.

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