Our heros are in a tight spot.

One of them smacks the walkie-talkie

they are trying to use to contact their lost team member. She
laments, “I can’t get a signal! There’s too much interference!”

But what exactly is interference?

Electromagnetic waves
Both light waves and radio waves are examples of electromagnetic
waves, meaning that they fall on the same electromagnetic spectrum
as infrared waves (the radiated heat you feel from a stove),
ultraviolet waves (the radiation that causes sunburns), and
microwaves (the radiation that’s used to cook food in a microwave)

Illustration of the electromagnetic spectrum

Because these are all waves, they all have a wavelength that
determines the distance over which their amplitude changes. Radio
waves can have wavelengths as wide as your arms (and even
longer!), while visible light waves have wavelengths as small as a
thousandth of the width of a human hair

Figure of a wavelength with labeled crest, amplitude, and troughs

Wave interference
When two waves come close to one another, their effects add
together. If the crests, or highest parts of the waves, line up
perfectly, then the crest of the combined wave will be the sum of the
heights of the two original crests. Likewise, if the lowest parts of the
waves (the troughs) line up just right, then the combined trough
will be the depth of the two original troughs combined. This is
known as constructive interference, in which two waves (of the
same wavelength) interact in such a way that they are aligned,
leading to a new wave that is bigger than the original wave.

Figure of constructive interference

However, if two waves are not perfectly aligned, then when the crest
of one wave comes along, it will be dragged down by the trough of
the other wave. The resulting, combined wave will have crests that
are shorter than the crests of either original wave, and troughs that
are shallower than either of the incoming waves. This is known
as destructive interference.

In fact, if the two waves (with the same amplitude) are shifted by
exactly half a wavelength when they merge together, then the crest
of one wave will match up perfectly with the trough of the other
wave, and they will cancel each other out. The resulting combined
wave will have no crests or troughs at all, and will instead just look
like a flat line, or no wave at all!
Figure of destructive interference of two out of phase waves creating
no wave

Double slit interference

Say you have a laser pointer. A laser is basically just a bunch of
light waves that all have the same wavelength and are all lined up
with one another. Suppose you place a card in front of the laser
beam with two slits in it, such that waves can only pass through two
spots. You then measure the amount of light that hits the wall on the
other side of the room at various points.

Figure of laser beam passing through two slits towards opposite wall

For the experiment to work, the slits have to be tiny compared to the
distance from the card to the wall, but they have to be larger than a
single wavelength of the light. That means that if we choose a spot
on the wall, two light waves will be hitting it; one from the top slit
and one from the bottom slit. As they get close to the wall, and close
to one another, they will start to interfere. We know that the two
waves were exactly the same when they got to the card, but they
won’t necessarily be the same when they reach the wall. Let’s
choose a spot on the wall to measure the two waves, say above the
top slit.
Figure of waves in phase passing through slits and becoming out of
phase as they near the opposite wall above the top slit

The light coming from the bottom slit has to come much further
than the light from the top slit, so more wavelengths will be needed
to travel the longer distance. If we choose a different point on the
wall, then we’ll get a different number of wavelengths again for
each path that the light takes from its slit to the wall. The key is to
compare the number of wavelengths it takes for each light wave to
travel from the slit to the wall. For constructive interference, the
difference in wavelengths will be an integer number of whole
wavelengths. For destructive interference it will be an integer
number of whole wavelengths plus a half wavelength.

Think of the point exactly between the two slits. The light waves
will be traveling the same distance, so they will be traveling the
same number of wavelengths. That means that there will always be
constructive interference at that spot, so we will always see a bright
spot on the wall in the middle.

Figure of waves in phase passing through slits and hitting target on

the opposite wall between the two slits

As you move away from the center point, the two waves’
pathlengths (or total distance travelled from the laser to the wall)
will get more and more different, until we hit a point where they are
the same plus a half wavelength. At that point, one of the waves will
hit the wall with a crest when the other hits with a trough, so they
will effectively cancel one another out, resulting in a dark spot there.

Figure of waves passing through slits and hitting target on the

opposite wall below the bottom slit

As we keep moving away from the center, the pathlengths will keep
getting different, until we get to the point where they are the same
plus a whole wavelength, so we’ll get constructive interference
again, because the two waves will meet at the same spot in their
wavelength cycle. This will result in another bright spot on the wall.

This pattern will keep alternating so that we get a pattern of light

spots and dark spots, both above and below our center bright spot.

Figure of diffraction pattern on the opposite wall

If your slits are further apart, the light waves will be coming from
spots that are further apart. That means that their path lengths will
be more different from one another, giving bright spots that are
closer together.

Figure of diffraction patterns through a wide slit vs a narrow slit

Single slit diffraction

You might think that if there is only one slit, there wouldn’t be any
wave interference, but let’s say we punched out the whole area
between the slits in our card. It’s still a small slit, but it’s much
bigger than our slits from the double slit experiment. We can
pretend to divide our slit into pieces, and compare the path lengths
of the light coming from these pieces to one another to discover
what sort of interference pattern we will get when they interact.

Let’s start in the middle of the wall, like we did for the double slit
case.

Figure of waves passing though single slit toward target on wall

directly opposite to slit

Let’s choose the points at the two edges of the slit. They are an
equal distance from the center of the slit, so their path lengths to the
center point on the wall will be the same. We know that that means
they will interfere constructively with one another.

If we choose two points that are further in, but still the same
distance from the middle of the slit, they will also have equal path
lengths to the center point on the wall. They will also interfere
constructively with one another.

So, we can see that there is a lot of constructive interference going

on at that center point, in fact, there will be a major bright spot there
because of it.
If we want to find a spot on the wall that is dark, we have to find
where there is the most destructive interference. Instead of taking
points symmetrically across the slit, let’s take two points, one at the
top edge and one just below the center line, and compare them.

Figure of waves passing though single slit toward two different

targets on opposite wall

Because all of these pairs are the same distance apart across the slit,
if we measure the path length from each pair to the same spot on the
wall, each pair will have the same difference in path length.
(Remember, the pairs won’t have the same absolute path length, just
the same difference in path length, which is what we’re interested in
anyway.) If we find the point on the wall where one pair has a half
wavelength difference in path length, then we’ve found the point
where all the pairs will. There will be a lot of destructive
interference at that point from all of the different pairs, so we’ll see
an overall dark spot there.

Just like for the dark spot, if we find a spot where these pairings
have a difference in path length of a full wavelength, we’ll get
another bright spot.

Figure of single-slit diffraction pattern

If we compare single-slit diffraction to the double-slit interference
pattern, the spots are much larger and more spread out. In particular,
the center bright spot is much larger than it would be for double slits
with the same width. We can view diffraction as light spreading out
when it comes up to a hole or other barrier, and trying to get around
that barrier. In the process of spreading out, it interferes with itself
to create the pattern of light and dark spots that we call a diffraction
pattern.

Double slit interference with diffraction

When we talked about double slit interference, we pretended that
only one light wave could go through each slit at a time. If instead
we realize that there are a few light waves travelling through each of
the two slits at once, then we can see that there will be a diffraction
pattern for each individual slit (in addition to the two-slit
interference pattern). Since the two slits are close together, and their
diffraction patterns are wide, their individual diffraction patterns are
similar and we can combine the two diffraction patterns to get the
same “single-slit” diffraction pattern that we got for one slit. This
pattern will hold our double-slit interference pattern back, limiting
how bright the bright spots can be at any given point on the wall.

If we have a bright spot in the diffraction pattern, then our

interference bright spots can be as bright at we want. But, if we have
a diffraction dark spot, then the bright spots in our interference
pattern cannot be any brighter than the diffraction dark spot, and
will disappear altogether.

Figure of single slit envelope, double slit diffraction and resulting

single slit diffraction and double slit diffraction

The interference pattern will come from the light from the two slits
interacting, and the diffraction pattern will come from the light from
each individual slit interacting with itself.

Consider the following

Imagine our scenario of interference from walkie talkie signals. Say
the receiver is between the person sending the walkie talkie signal
and a solid rock cliff, and we know that the wavelength of the
walkie talkie signal is 1 meter. The signal will reach the receiver,
but then keep going past them to the cliff, and bounce off it. The
signal will then come back to the receiver. That means that the
distance between the receiver and the cliff will determine how the
incoming and reflected waves interact with one another. The
difference in path length will be the distance past the receiver that
the wave travels, plus the distance back again.

Illustration of walkie talkie signals being received directly and

indirectly from bouncing off rock cliff
Since the wavelength of the walkie talkie signal is 1 meter, then the
path difference will need to be a multiple of a whole metre for
constructive interference, and a half metre for destructive
interference. The receiver can try moving to a place closer or further
from the cliff to try to make the signal interference work to their
advantage.

Q:
Where does the energy go when Destructive Interference happens? I tried
searching on the web, all I cam to know was that the energy lost in the
Destructive Interference simply adds up to the energy of Constructive
Interference, but the question is how? I want to know how this happens in the
Young's Double Slit Experiment!!
- Vishwajeet Mishra (age 18)
Silvassa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, India

A:
Hi Vishwajeet,

You are absolutely correct that whenever you have destructive interference,
there must be some constructive interference somewhere else. This much is
obvious from the law of conservation of energy: anytime energy disappears
from one place, we know it can be found in some form somewhere else.
However, exactly how this happens is often not at all obvious in a specific
case, for which you can prove this fact only by careful calculations. In a few
cases, the calculations involved aren't terribly difficult, and just require some
algebra. One of these cases is the two-slit experiment, if you look far away
from the slits. (Close to the slits, the math is a bit trickier, and you get a pretty
but complicated pattern like .)

As you know, destructive and constructive interference (and everywhere in

between) happens whenever two waves which are out of phase add together.
Anytime you have two spatially separated sources of light, you will get
interference of some sort. There is a surprising amount of useful literature on
the two-slit experiment. shows nicely how two different observation points will
see a different relative phase between the two beams, leading to a different
total intensity:
As you can see, interference in light waves is just a re-distribution of energy,
depending on exactly which parts of the light wave overlap at each point in
space. The pattern of light you see is then determined by the geometry; in the
double slit case, you get something like the :
To summarize: if you understand how destructive interference happens, then
you know how constructive interference happens too. If you choose a specific
case and add up all the energy, you find that none is lost. This calculation
usually amounts to a lot of geometry.

You might think that you could devise an interferometer or other device which
combines two beams in such a way as to cancel completely, without having
observation points for which the wave crests align. In fact, I tried my best
before writing this answer. I encourage you to try as well, but if you are careful
to take everything into account, you will find it just isn't possible!

Hope that helps,

David Schmid

(published on 03/16/2013)

Follow-Up #1: energy conservation in interference patterns

Q:
My question also involves Young’s ‘double-slit’ experiment of 1803. As I
understand the classic mathematical solution, the geometry of the test
apparatus yields the wave length of the light. Where the interval coefficient is
an integral, light bars appear, and at the integer plus 0.5 locations, dark bars
occur. Thus, dark areas occur where the negative abscissas of the waves
coincide. This solution still seems to me to violate conservation of energy. I
would think the dark regions should occur where the waves crossing the
neutral axis coincide because at that point neither wave has amplitude and
thus where I assume no energy resides. As I understand the answer giving for
the previous question, the energy is somehow shifted into the zones of
constructive interference and the total energy striking the target remains the
same. This implies that the energy striking the light areas must be some factor
(such as 4) times the energy that is received from a single slit. Has this been
verified experimentally? Also, is there an explanation of the mechanism by
which this occurs?
- John (age 53)
Cary, North Carolina

A:
Your understanding of our old answers is correct. Those factors of 4 are
observed countless times in all sorts of interference experiments. There's no
mystery to it. For classical electromagnetism, the energy flow is given by the
Poynting vector, proportional to ExB, where those are the electric and
magnetic fields. Just following that energy flow around gives the right amount
arriving in the right places.

Mike W.