1

Goals

The goal of this lab is to measure the de Broglie wavelength of electrons by diffracting them from parallel
planes of atoms in a carbon film. Furthermore, we measure the lattice spacings in the carbon film.

Experimental Setup

The setup consists of an electron diffraction tube with a carbon thin filament along with two power supplies,
denoted by Vb and Va . Here is a diagram of the described setup:

Figure 1
Vf is controls the temperature of the cathode and thus the quantity of emitted electrons and is contained
in the same power supply as Va . The external bias Vb surrounding the cathode serves to focus the electron
beam, and is powered by a separate power supply. Finally, Va is the voltage which the electrons pass through
before hitting the carbon film. We are able to control 5kV dc power supplies respectively.
Now in order to measure the de Broglie wavelength, we do not need any information about the carbon
film. We may assume that the electrons are in the non-relativistic regime (since Vf is not large enough to
make the electrons relativistic), so we have that the de Broglie wavelength is given by,
(1) =

h
2me(Va Vb )

a Vb ) 1/2
= (1.23nm)( (V1Volt
)

After the electrons pass through the voltage, Va , then they will diffract off the carbon film. Since the
electrons diffract off the carbon film, we will view diffraction patterns (in this case we see rings). Since
carbon is a polycrystalline, then the condition for constructive interference (for bright rings), is that
(2) = d
(3) = arctan(

74+

D/2
662 (D/2)2 )

where , is the de Broglie wavelength given by (1), d is the lattice spacing and D is the diameter of the
observed diffraction ring. There are two principal lattice spacings for carbon which are shown below:

Figure 2
Using (2) and (3) we will find, d1 and d2 .

Measurements

As discussed in the previous sections the principal measurements to derive the de Broglie wavelength at
various Va and the lattice spacings in carbon are Vb , Va , and D. Now when we observe the diffraction rings,
there are two rings corresponding to d1 and d2 . We will denote their diameters as Dinner and Douter . You
will see that we have Dinner,min and Dinner,max , and similarly for Douter , since there is a width to the
diffraction ring. (For formatting purposes Dinner,min will be Di,1 in the table and simlarly for Douter,1 we
will write Do,1 ) Below is a table of the measurements for the three values and their uncertainties:

1
2
3
4
5
6

Va
2.5
3
3.5
4.0
2.2
3.2

Va
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1

Vb
5.2
5.2
5.2
5.2
4.0
4.0

Di (mm)
Vb
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1

and Do (mm) for Va (kV) and Vb (V)

Di,1
Di,1 Di,2
Di,2 Do,1
26
1
30
1
47
22
1
26
1
44
19
1
25
1
38
18
1
22
1
35
27
1
32
1
50
21
1
26
1
42
Table 1

Do,1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Do,2
53
48
43
38
60
46

Do,2
1
1
1
1
1
1

Calculations and Error Analysis

We use the values from Table 1 and use (1) To calculate the de Broglie wavelength, and use (3) to calculate
. Using the average value for Dinner and Douter (and thus the uncertainty in the average is the average of
the uncertainties), we can determine inner and outer . Below is a table of the calculated values and their
uncertainties (computed using the quadrature error formula)

1
2
3
4
5
6

Corresponding

0.0246 0.0005
0.0225 0.0003
0.0208 0.0003
0.0195 0.0002
0.0262 0.0006
0.0218 0.0003

(nm) and inner

inner inner
0.101
0.002
0.086
0.002
0.079
0.002
0.072
0.002
0.106
0.002
0.084
0.002
Table 2

and outer
outer
outer
0.183
0.002
0.086
0.002
0.147
0.002
0.132
0.002
0.202
0.002
0.160
0.002

Using Table 2, we can now use (2) to find d1 and d2 . So we have that
d =
We take the average as our values for d1 and d2 and use the standard deviation as our uncertainty. So
we find that d2 = 0.258 0.004 nm and d1 = 0.16 0.02 nm.
Here are the plots of (nm) vs inner (blue) and (nm) vs outer (red) with the above slopes, where
inner corresponds with d2 and outer corresponds with d1 :

Plot 1

Plot 2

Conclusion

As we can see from the original values given in the manual d1 = 0.123 nm and d2 = 0.213 nm but our values
are not in agreement. This could be to systematic errors in measuring the diameter of the rings using the
calipers. Also the magnetic field generated by the diffracted electrons could cause the calipers to have errors.