Newton’s Ring Experiment

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Divya Prakash Srivastava

Q.What are Newton’s Rings?

A.Alternate dark and bright rings formed due to presence of air film when plano convex lens is
placed on glass plate is called newtons rings.

Q.How are Newton’s rings formed?

A.They are formed as a result of interference between light waves reflected from the upper and
lower surfaces of the air film developed between the convex surface of plano convex lens and
plane glass plate.

Q.Why are they circular?

A.This is so because the air film formed is wedge shaped and loci of points of equal thickness are
circles concentric with point of contact.

Q.what is the function of the 45° inclined glass plate?

A.It turns the light rays coming from an extended source to ninety degrees and so the rays fall
normally on the plano convex lens.

Q.Why do rings get closer as their order increases?

A.The diameter of dark rings is proportional to the square root of natural numbers while bright
rings are proportional to the square root of odd natural numbers hence the don’t increase at the
same rate.

Q.Why is the center of the ring dark?

A.At the point of contact the path difference is zero but one of the rays is reflected so the effective
path difference becomes λ/2 thus the condition of minimum intensity is created hence it is a dark
spot.

Q.What if the glass plate is replaced with plane mirror?

A.Then we will not get interference fringe because the intensity of light reflected from mirror will
be so great that it won’t be visible and we will get uniform illumination.

Q.What if sodium light is replaced with white light?

A.Few colored fringes will be observed near the center.

Q.What will happen if we replace the lens with plane glass?

A.Then interference will take place but the shape of the rings will be irregular.

Q.What will happen if few drops of liquid is introduced between the lens and glass?

A.The diameter of the rings will decrease because the diameter of the rings is inversely
proportional to the refractive index.

Q.What will happen if we use a lens of small radius of curvature?

A.Then the rings will be of smaller diameter and there is chance of error while taking the
readings.

Q.What if a plane glass making some angle with the glass stripe is used in place of lens?

A.Then we will have dark and bright fringes in shape of a line.

Diffraction Grating
Posted on February 17, 2015 by Divya Prakash Srivastava

Q.What is diffraction?

A.The process by which a beam of light or other system of waves is spread out as a result of
passing through a narrow aperture or across an edge, typically accompanied by interference
between the wave forms produced.

Q.What is diffraction grating?

A.It is an optically flat glass plate on which large number of equidistant parallel lines are ruled
by a fine diamond pen.

Q.What is grating element?

A.It is the distance between the centers of any two successive ruled lines or transparent stripes.

Q.What is the difference between prism and grating spectrum?

A.In grating spectrum violet color is least deviated and red color is most deviated but in prism
the reverse is true.

Q.When will the even order spectra disappear?

A.They will disappear if the size of opaque lines and transparent stripes is made equal.
Q.Why does red color deviate the most in case of grating?

A.This is so because in case of grating sin θ=n λ/(e+d) i.e angle of diffraction is proportional to
the wavelength and the wavelength of red is maximum.

Q.What gives a more intense spectrum – prism or grating?

A. A prism gives more intense spectrum because in prism entire light is concentrated into one
spectrum while in the case of grating light is distributed in the grating spectra of different
orders.

Q.Why is light incident on the side of grating which has no rulings?

A.To avoid refraction of diffracted light.

Q.Define dispersion of light.

A.The process of splitting of white light into it’s constituent colors is called dispersion of light.

Q.Describe essential parts of spectrometer.

A. Collimator , prism table,telescope.

Q.Why do we need two vernier scales?

A.To remove the error in reading due to not coinciding the axis of prism table and telescope.

Q.Name two types of spectra.

A. Emission spectra,Absorption spectra

Diffraction Grating