Exam 22: Wave Optics

Light from a monochromatic source shines through a double slit onto a screen 5.00 m away. The slits are 0.180 mm apart. The dark bands on the screen are measured to be 1.70 cm apart. What is the wavelength of the incident light?

Light of wavelength 575 nm passes through a double-slit and the third order bright fringe is seen at an angle of 6.5° away from the central fringe. What is the separation between the double slits?

When monochromatic light illuminates a grating with 7000 lines per centimeter, its second order maximum is at 62.4°. What is the wavelength of the light?

A diffraction grating has 450 lines per mm. What is the highest order m that contains the entire visible spectrum from 400 nm to 700 nm?

In a double-slit experiment, if the slit separation is increased, which of the following happens to the interference pattern shown on the screen?

A thin beam of laser light of wavelength 514 nm passes through a diffraction grating having 3952 lines/cm. The resulting pattern is viewed on a distant curved screen that can show all bright fringes up to and including ±90.0° from the central spot. If the experiment were performed with all of the apparatus under water (which has an index of refraction of 1.33), what would be the TOTAL number of bright spots that would show up on the screen?

At most, how many bright fringes can be formed on each side of the central bright fringe (not counting the central bright fringe) when light of 625 nm falls on a double slit whose spacing is 1.97 × 10^-6 m?

Light of wavelength 525 nm passes through two slits separated by 0.500 mm and produces an interference pattern on a screen 7.80 m away. The intensity at the central maximum is I₀. What is the distance on the screen from the center of this central maximum to the point where the intensity due to double-slit interference has fallen to 1/2 I_0?

A diffraction grating has 300 lines per mm. If light of frequency 4.76 × 10¹⁴ Hz is sent through this grating, at what angle does the first order maximum occur? (c = 3.00 × 10⁸ m/s)

A metallic sheet has a large number of slits, 5.0 mm wide and 20 cm apart, and is used as a diffraction grating for microwaves. A wide parallel beam of microwaves is incident normally on the sheet. If the microwave wavelength is 6.0 cm, what is the largest angle away from the central maximum at which an intensity maximum occurs.

In a double slit experiment, the intensity of light at the center of the central bright fringe is measured to be 6.2 µW/m². What is the intensity halfway between the center of this fringe and the first dark band, assuming that the small-angle approximation is valid?

A metallic sheet has a large number of slits, 5.0 mm wide and 20 cm apart, and is used as a diffraction grating for microwaves. A wide parallel beam of microwaves is incident normally on the sheet. What is the smallest microwave frequency for which only the central maximum occurs? (c = 3.00 × 10⁸ m/s)

Two radio antennas are 120 m apart on a north-south line, and they radiate in phase at a frequency of 3.4 MHz. All radio measurements are made far from the antennas. If the east-west reference line passes midway between the two antennas, what is the smallest angle from the antennas, measured north of east, at which constructive interference of two radio waves occurs? (c = 3.00 × 10⁸ m/s)

A single slit forms a diffraction pattern with monochromatic light. The 4th minimum of the pattern occurs at an angle of 35° from the central maximum. How many bright bands are on each side of the central maximum?

If the fifth order minimum in the diffraction pattern due to a thin slit is at 40° from the central maximum, at what angle does the first order minimum occur?

In a diffraction grating experiment, light of 600 nm wavelength produces a first-order maximum 0.350 mm from the central maximum on a distant screen. A second monochromatic source produces a third-order maximum 0.870 mm from the central maximum when it passes through the same diffraction grating. What is the wavelength of the light from the second source?

Light passes through a pair of very thin parallel slits. The resulting interference pattern is viewed far from the slits at various angles θ relative to the centerline coming outward from the midpoint between the slits. The central bright fringe is at θ = 0°. If the central bright fringe has intensity I₀, what is the intensity of the next bright fringe on either side of it?

Light of wavelength 519 nm passes through two slits. In the interference pattern on a screen 4.6 m away, adjacent bright fringes are separated by 5.2 mm in the general vicinity of the center of the pattern. What is the separation of the two slits?

Two sources of light illuminate a double slit simultaneously. One has wavelength 570 nm and the second has an unknown wavelength. The m = 5 bright fringe of the unknown wavelength overlaps the M = 4 bright fringe of the light of 570 nm wavelength. What is the unknown wavelength?

Light of wavelength 687 nm is incident on a single slit 0.75 mm wide. At what distance from the slit should a screen be placed if the second dark fringe in the diffraction pattern is to be 1.7 mm from the center of the diffraction pattern?