THEORY OF BRAGG’S DIFFRACTION

CRYSTALS made up of smallest individual units called ATOMS.

In every crystal there are certain set of definite planes rich in atom.

Monochromatic X-rays – falls on a crystal – scattering of X-rays takes place.

Scattering is done by every individual atom.

 This scattering of monochromatic light from those planes results in reflections

and the planes are called BRAGG’S PLANES.

For this reason Bragg’s scattering is usually referred to as Bragg’s reflections.

REFLECTED X-RAYS

PHASE: ANTIPHASE

Glancing angles Different values of

Rays reinforce angles.

Strong intensity Zero and feeble

Ionization I is high reflections.

By rotating the turn table , angle of incidence can be changed . There by series of
maxima and minima intensities can be obtained.

Bragg’s Law
 .

 The beam is parallel reflected at the successive layers rich in atoms Ray No.1 is
reflected from atom A in plane 1 whereas ray No.2 is reflected from atom B lying in
plane 2 immediately below atom

 Whether to reflected rays will be in phase or antiphase with each other will depend
on their path difference. This path difference can be found by drawing
perpendiculars AM and AN on ray No.2. Since the two rays travel the same
distance from points A.

N onwards, it is obvious
that ray No.2 travels

extra distance = path difference

= MB + BN

= d sin  + d sin  = 2d sin 

= 2d sin  = n

BRAGG’S LAW

 W.L.BRAGG and W.H.BRAGG studied the diffraction of X-rays in crystal.

 2d sin  = n

where,

d=interplanar distance between atoms in the crystal

n= order of diffraction ( 1, 2, 3 etc. for the first – order, second order and third order
maxima respectively)

=wavelength of the incident radiation

 = angle of diffraction

o Different directions in which intense reflections will be produced can be found by

giving different values to  in the above equation.

For the first maxima, sin 1 = /2d

For the second maxima, sin 2 = 2/2d

For the third maxima, sin 2 = 3/2d etc.

WHEN THE ORDER OF SPECTRUM INCREASES :

o Intensities of maxima decreases

o The separation between maxima for 1and 2 goes on increasing

MODERN X RAY SPECTROMETER

  the ionization chamber is replaced by a photographic plate .

 Such an instrument is known as X-ray spectrograph.

the value of d in terms of the Miller indices of the planes for a cubic system, we get ,

APPLICATIONS

 From the graph

the glancing angles for different orders of reflection can be measured.

by knowing the angle and the spacing d for the crystal,wavelength of X –rays
can be determined.

Bragg’s law and crystal structure

Bragg used a KCI crystal (which is cubic) and found first maxima of reflected X-rays to
occur at values of  equal to 5.220, and AFH (Fig.16.26) are used in turn as reflecting planes.

Now, for first order spectrum

2d sin  = 

  = 2

:: sin 5.220 : sin 7.300 : sin 9.050

: : 0.091 : 0.127 : 0.157

 
 : : 1 : 1.4 : 1.73

These figures agree remarkably well with those derived geometrically.

Suppose in the case of some crystal, we get ,

then we are sure that it has a body-centred type structure. In this way, Bragg’s law can
be utilized to analyse different types of crystal structures.