RIZAL TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Cities of Mandaluyong and Pasig

STUDENT #: _2018-201356_ DATE: _12/07/20_

CLASS SECTION: _PCED-06-501A_ SCORE: _____________

EXPERIMENT 8
LIGHT WAVES AND COLOR

Procedure: It is a simple matter to produce soap films that demonstrate thin-film

interference phenomena. Place a few drops of liquid dish-washing detergent in a
shallow bowl and add enough water to from a reasonably fluid solution. Bend a piece
of wire into a closed loop, leaving a small length to serve as a handle. (Alternatively,
you can purchase bubble-making solution with the wire loop included for a very small
cost.)

Question 1: Dip the loop in the soap solution to form a soap film in the plane of the
loop. Reflect light from a desk lamp from the film. Describe the colored patterns that
you see.

Answer: I saw that the soap film creates a rainbow effect when it reflects to the light.

Question 2: If you hold the loop in a vertical plane, the colors should settle into a
pattern of horizontal bands. Sketch the bands that you see indicating both their color
and width. Explain why we get horizontal bands.

Answer: The bright colors and horizontal bands at soap films are caused by
interference. The brightest colors are those that interfere constructively. This
interference is between light reflected from different surfaces of a thin film; thus, the
effect is known as thin interference.

Question 3: Try illuminating your soap film first with a frosted incandescent lamp and
then with a fluorescent lamp. Describe the differences that you see.

Answer: When you use a frosted incandescent lamp, you will see a darker reflection
of rainbow effect and when you see a fluorescent lamp you will see a brighter and a
clear reflection of the mirror effect that creates in soap film when you reflect it to the
light.

COURSE TITLE Analytic Geometry (Math 107) 1

RIZAL TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
Cities of Mandaluyong and Pasig

COURSE TITLE Analytic Geometry (Math 107) 2