Principle
Monochromatic light is incident on a slit or an edge. The intensity distribution of the diffraction pattern is determined.
Benefits
- learn that the transition region from light to shadow is not a sharp line, but a diffraction pattern
- you can make use of diffraction patterns to determine properties of the objects causing them
- simple setup with very few components
Tasks
- Measurement of the width of a given slit.
- Measurement of the intensity distribution of the diffraction pattern of the slit and of the edge.
What you can learn about
- Intensity
- Fresnel integrals
- Fraunhofer diffraction