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Waves

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14 views28 pages

Waves

Uploaded by

barshanbd9
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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§ Transverse waves vibrates/oscilates perpendicular to their direction of travel.

§ These vibrations/oscillations can happen in any plane perpendicular to the propagation


direction
• Vibrations are restricted to one direction
• These vibrations are still perpendicular to the direction of propagation/energy transfer
• This is one directional vibration of a transverse wave is Polarisation
MALUS'S LAW
• The intensity of unpolarised light is reduced
• Intensity of the transmitted polarised light falls by a half
• The first filter that the unpolarised light goes through is the polariser
• A second filter placed after the first one is known as an analyser
• If the analyser has the same orientation as the polariser, the light transmitted by the analyser has
the same intensity as the light incident on it
• If they have a different orientation, we must used Malus's law

• Malus's law states that if the analyser is rotated by an angle θ with respect to the polariser,
the intensity of the light transmitted by the analyser is
THE PRINCIPLE OF
SUPERPOSITION
§ When two or more waves meet, the resultant displacement is the vector sum of the
displacements of the individual waves

• When two waves with the same frequency and amplitude arrive at a point, they superpose
either:
• in phase, causing constructive interference. The peaks and troughs line up on both waves. The
resultant wave has double the amplitude
• or, in anti-phase, causing destructive interference. The peaks on one wave line up with the
troughs of the other. The resultant wave has no amplitude
§ When the waves meet in phase, constructive interference occurs and regions of
maximum displacement are created. These are called the antinodes.

§ When the waves meet out of phase, destructive interference occurs and regions of
minimum displacement are created. These are called the nodes.
§ The lowest frequency at which a stationary wave forms is called the fundamental
frequency.
§ It forms a stationary wave, called the first harmonic, with two nodes and a single
antinode.
§ The distance between adjacent nodes (or antinodes) is half a wavelength (for any
harmonic).

§ where L is the length of the vibrating string, T is the tension and μ is the mass per
unit length.
§ Diffraction is the spreading out of waves when they pass through or around a gap.
§ The greatest diffraction occurs when the gap is the same size as the wavelength.
§ When the gap is smaller than the wavelength most waves are reflected, whereas
when it is larger there is less noticeable diffraction.
§ When a wave meets an obstacle you get diffraction round the edges, the wider the
obstacle compared to the wavelength, the less diffraction.
§ Monochromatic light can be diffracted through a single slit onto a screen, which
forms an interference pattern of light and dark fringes.
§ The pattern has a bright central fringe, which is double the width of all other
fringes, with alternating dark and bright fringes on either side, the bright fringes
are caused by constructive interference
§ where the waves meet in phase and the dark fringes are caused by destructive
interference where waves arrive completely out of phase.
§ A coherent light source has the same frequency and wavelength and a fixed phase
difference.
§ Young’s double slit experiment demonstrates the interference of light from two-
sources.
§ In this experiment, you can use two coherent sources of light or you could use one
coherent source and a double slit in order to form an interference pattern.
§ The formula associated with the above experiment is:

§ Where x is the fringe spacing,

§ λ is the wavelength of light used, D is the distance between the screen and slits, and
a is the slit separation.
§ A diffraction grating is a slide containing many equally spaced slits very close
together.
§ When monochromatic light is passed through a diffraction grating, the interference
pattern is much sharper and brighter
§ This means measurements of slit widths are much more accurate as they are easier
to take.
§ The bright fringe formed by rays of light passing through the diffraction grating
constructively interfering at the centre of the pattern is called the zero order line,
fringes formed either side of the zero order are the first order lines, then the lines
outside the two first order lines are the second order lines, and so on as showcased in
the diagram above on the left.

§ The formula associated with diffraction gratings is

§ d sinθ = nλ

§ where d is the distance between the slits, θ is the angle to the normal made by the
maximum, n is the order and λ is the wavelength.
§ Considering the first order maximum, where the path difference between two adjacent rays of
light is one wavelength (as shown in the diagram below), name the angle between the normal to
the grating and the ray of light θ.

§ 2. As you can see a right angle triangle is formed, with side lengths d and λ. By using the fact that
a right angle is 90°, and angles in a triangle add up to 180°, you can see the upper angle in the
triangle is θ (because the lower angle is 90-θ°).

§ λ 3. By using trigonometry we can see that for the first maximum, sin θ = (as sin θ = d

§ Opp/Hyp) which rearranges to dsin θ = λ , (for the first order).

§ 4. We know that the other maxima occur when the path difference between the two rays of light is
nλ, where n is an integer, therefore we can generalise the equation by replacing λ with nλ to get d
sinθ = nλ .
There are several applications of diffraction gratings:

● You can split up light from stars using a diffraction grating to get a
line absorption spectra which can be used to show which elements
are present in the star.

● X-ray crystallography is where x-rays are directed at a thin crystal


sheet which acts as a diffraction grating to form a diffraction pattern
(due to the wavelength of x-rays being similar in size to the gaps
between the atoms). This diffraction pattern can be used to measure
the atomic spacing in certain materials.

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