Experiment No: Date:

Measurement of Wavelength of LASER using Diffraction Grating

Aim:
Measurement of the wavelength of the He-Ne LASER using diffraction grating.
Equipment:
Laser, Grating, Screen.
Theory:

Optical diffraction is defined as the small bending experienced by the light waves as it
passes around the edge of an object. The amount of bending depends on the relative size of the
wavelength of the light to the size of the opening/slit. The bending is negligible if the size of the
slit is greater than the wavelength of the light. However, if these sizes are comparable in
dimensions then the amount of bending is considerable and can be detected. A diffraction
grating is an optical component consisting of a surface ruled with close, equidistant, and parallel
lines. Each of the lines embedded in the grating is opaque and the gap between the lines is
transparent which will hence transmit the light. These gaps (hereafter will be referred to as slits)
between the lines will act as the slits through which the light can pass through. Therefore, the
diffraction grating can be considered as a system consists of several slits which will split and
diffracts the light into several beams traveling in different directions with different angles. Figure 1
shows one typical section of a grating.

Figure 1: Geometry determining the conditions for diffraction from multi-slit grating.

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As the light pass through the grating, the light waves entering the slit areas will transmit
through them and the portion of the light waves impinges at the line will get absorbed or reflected
back. The light beams emerging from each slit will interfere with each other and forms an image
provided the emerging waves are in a constant phase relationship with respect to each other. This
phenomenon is called as constructive interference and is well explained pictorially in Figure 1.
Whenever the difference in path length between the light propagates from different slits is an
integral number of the wavelength of incident light, the light from each of these slits will be in
phase, and it will form an image at a specified location. Mathematically, this can be expressed as

d sin θ = nλ n=1,2, 3…… (1)

where,
d is the distance between adjacent slits,
θ is the angle that the re-created image makes with the normal to the grating surface,
λ is the wavelength of the light,
and n = 0, 1, 2, . . . is an integer.
The form of the diffraction pattern recorded on the screen/recording device will depend on
the source of light used to create the diffraction pattern. In the case of white light source
diffraction gratings can be used to split the light into its constituent wavelengths (colors). In the
case of monochromatic light sources like lasers, the diffraction pattern on the screen will be
similar to that shown in Figure 2. The figure shows a typical experimental setup for diffraction
grating experiment. The experimental setup consists of a monochromatic light source (preferably a
laser), a diffraction grating and a screen. As the monochromatic light source hits the diffraction
grating the lights transmitted through the slits forms images at a number of angles on the screen
θ1 , θ2 ,θ 3 and so on. The light that forms image/spot straight to the screen is called the zero th order

image/fringe. The zeroth order image will always forms at an angle of θ = 0 irrespective of the
wavelength of the light source and/or the grating spacing. Since this spot will not provide any
special information normally we used to ignore this spot during the time of experimentation. The

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symmetric secondary images formed at the sides of the central spot are called primary and
secondary images etc. The image/spot formed at the nth position on the screen with respect to the
central spot is called the nth image and will be formed at an angle θ = θn .

Figure 2: Experimental set-up for measuring wavelengths with a diffraction grating.

The value θn is given by the grating equation

θn =arcsin ( nλ d ) (2)
In this present set of experiments, we will be interested in the first and second order
diffraction images of the laser to measure its wavelength. The diffraction gratings used for this
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experiment is having 200 lines/mm, so that the grating spacing can be calculated as 200 mm .
Procedures:
1. Set up the laser and grating as shown in Figure 2.

2. Measure the distance L between the screen and the diffraction grating.
3. Turn on the laser and mark the zeroth order fringe.

4. Measure the distance s1 between the 1st order images appearing on the left and right sides
of the center spot/ zeroth order fringe.

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5. Measure the distance s2 between the 2nd order images appearing on the left and right sides
of the center spot/ zeroth order fringe.

s2
θ2 =
6. It should be clear from simple trigonometric considerations that and 2L

from which you can extract two independent measurements of the laser wavelength.

OBSERVATION TABLE

Given and Measured Grating spacing, d = --1/300---mm

Sl. The distance Order of The distance of first θ Wavelengt Measured Error (%)
No: between the the order (s1) and second Angle λ
grating and image,n order (s2) images (m) h, (nm) λ
screen, L (m) (nm)

s1 s2

1 8 (example) 1 1.2=S1 0.15 500

2 8 2 2.6=S2

3 8 1 650

4 8 2

5 15 1 500

6 15 2

7 15 1 650

8 15 2

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Conclusion:

Precaution.

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