RAYMUND B.

BOLALIN
DLSU Physics Department

Diffraction
Diffraction is the bending of waves around obstacles
or the edges of an opening.
Consider sound waves leaving a
room through an open doorway.
Because the exiting sound waves
bend, or diffract, around the edges of
the opening, a listener outside the
room can hear the sound even when
standing around the corner from the
doorway.
Diffraction is therefore an
interference effect.
Huygens Principle
Huygensprinciple describes how a wave front that
exists at one instant gives rise to the wave front that
exists later on.
It states that:
Every point on a wave front acts as a source of tiny
wavelets that move forward with the same speed as the
wave; the wave front at a later instant is the surface
that is tangent to the wavelets.
Huygens Principle
The drawing shows the top view of a plane wave front of
sound approaching a doorway and identifies five points
on the wave front just as it is leaving the opening.
According to Huygens principle, each of these points acts
as a source of wavelets, which are shown as red circular
arcs at some moment after they are emitted.
The tangent to the wavelets from points 2, 3, and 4
indicates that in front of the doorway the wave front is flat
and moving straight ahead.
But at the edges, points 1 and 5 are the last points that
produce wavelets.
Huygens principle suggests that in conforming to the
curved shape of the wavelets near the edges, the new wave
front moves into regions that it would not reach
otherwise.
The sound wave, then, bends or diffracts around the edges
of the doorway.
Huygens Principle
Huygens principle applies not just to sound waves, but
to all kinds of waves.
For instance, light has a wave-like nature and,
consequently, exhibits diffraction.
Therefore, you may ask, Since I can hear around the
edges of a doorway, why cant I also see around them?
As a matter of fact, light waves do bend around the
edges of a doorway. However, the degree of bending is
extremely small, so the diffraction of light is not
enough to allow you to see around the corner.
Factors Controlling Diffraction
The extent to which a wave bends around the edges of an opening is
determined by the ratio /W, where is the wavelength of the wave and W is
the width of the opening.










These photographs show water waves (horizontal lines) approaching an
opening whose width W is greater in (a) than in (b). In addition, the
wavelength of the waves is smaller in (a) than in (b). Therefore, the ratio /W
increases from (a) to (b) and so does the extent of the diffraction, as the red
arrows indicate.
Diffraction of Light
We might expect then that light waves of wavelength will bend or
diffract appreciably when they pass through an opening whose width
W is small enough to make the ratio /W sufficiently large.
(a) If light were to pass through a very
narrow slit without being diffracted, only
the region on the screen directly
opposite the slit would be illuminated.

(b) Diffraction causes the light to bend
around the edges of the slit into regions
it would not otherwise reach, forming a
pattern of alternating bright and dark
fringes on the screen. The slit width has
been exaggerated for clarity.
Single-Slit Diffraction
The figure shows a top view of a plane
wave front approaching the slit and
singles out five sources of Huygens
wavelets.
Consider how the light from these
five sources reaches the midpoint on
the screen.
To simplify things, the screen is
assumed to be so far from the slit that
the rays from each Huygens source
are nearly parallel.
Then, all the wavelets travel virtually
the same distance to the midpoint,
arriving there in phase.
As a result, constructive interference
creates a bright central fringe on the
screen, directly opposite the slit.
Single-Slit Diffraction
The wavelets emitted by the Huygens
sources in the slit can also interfere
destructively on the screen.
Destructive interference creates the first
dark fringe when the extra distance
traveled by the wavelet from source 5 is
exactly one wavelength, as the colored
right triangle in the drawing indicates.
Under this condition, the extra distance
traveled by the wavelet from source 3 at
the center of the slit is exactly one-half
of a wavelength.
Single-Slit Diffraction
In a single-slit diffraction pattern, multiple dark
fringes occur on either side of the central bright fringe.
This drawing shows how destructive interference
creates the second dark fringe on a very distant screen.
Single-Slit Diffraction
Between each pair of dark fringes there is a bright fringe due to
constructive interference. The brightness of the fringes is related to the
light intensity, just as loudness is related to sound intensity. The
intensity of the light at any location on the screen is the amount of
light energy per second per unit area that strikes the screen there.
The higher-order bright fringes are much less intense than the central
fringe, as the graph indicates.

Problem: Single-Slit Diffraction
Light passes through a slit and shines on a flat screen that
is located L=0.40 m away. The wavelength of the light in a
vacuum is =410 nm. The distance between the midpoint
of the central bright fringe and the first dark fringe is y.
Determine the width 2y of the central bright fringe when
the width of the slit is (a) W=5.0 x 10
-6
m and (b) W=2.5 x
10
-6
m.
Solution: Single-Slit Diffraction
(a) The angle locates the first dark fringe when m=1
and s0 sin = (1) /W. Therefore,


Since tan = y/L, the width 2y of the central bright
fringe is

(b) 2y=0.13 m
Resolving Power
These automobile headlights were photographed at
various distances from the camera, closest in part (a)
and farthest in part (c). In part (c), the headlights are
so far away that they are barely distinguishable.
Resolving Power
The resolving power of an optical instrument, such as a camera,
is its ability to distinguish between two closely spaced objects.
If a camera with a higher resolving power had taken those
pictures, the photograph in part c would have shown two distinct
and separate headlights.
Any instrument used for viewing objects that are close together
must have a high resolving power.
This is true, for example, for a telescope used to view distant
stars or for a microscope used to view tiny organisms.
The diffraction occurs when light passes through the circular, or
nearly circular, openings that admit light into cameras,
telescopes, microscopes, and human eyes.
The resulting diffraction pattern places a limit on the resolving
power of these instruments.
Diffraction on Round Openings
When light passes through a small
circular opening, a circular
diffraction pattern is formed on a
screen.
The angle locates the first dark
fringe relative to the central bright
region.
The intensities of the bright fringes
and the diameter of the opening
have been exaggerated for clarity.
Diffraction on Round Openings
These fringes are analogous to the rectangular fringes
that a single slit produces. The angle in the picture
locates the first circular dark fringe relative to the
central bright region and is given by


where is the wavelength of the light and D is the
diameter of the opening. This expression is similar to
equation for slit diffraction (sin = /W, when m=1)
and is valid when the distance to the screen is much
larger than the diameter D.


Resolving Power of Optical Instruments
An optical instrument with the ability to resolve two
closely spaced objects can produce images of them
that can be identified separately.
When light from two point objects passes through
the circular aperture of a camera, two circular
diffraction patterns are formed as images on the
film. The images here are completely separated or
resolved because the objects are widely separated.
On the other hand, if the objects are sufficiently
close together, the intensity patterns created by the
diffraction overlap and the picture from a camera
would show a single blurred object instead of two
separate objects.
Rayleigh criterion for resolution
First proposed by Lord Rayleigh, it is a useful criterion
for judging whether two closely spaced objects will be
resolved by an optical instrument.
It states that:
Two point objects are just resolved when the first dark
fringe in the diffraction pattern of one falls directly on
the central bright fringe in the diffraction pattern of the
other.
Rayleigh criterion for resolution
(a) According to the Rayleigh criterion, two point objects
are just resolved when the first dark fringe (zero intensity)
of one image falls on the central bright fringe (maximum
intensity) of the other image. (b) This photograph shows
two overlapping but still resolvable diffraction patterns.
Rayleigh criterion for resolution
The minimum angle
min
between the two objects in the
drawing is that given by

If
min
is small (less than about 10
0
) and is expressed in
radians, sin
min

min
. So,


For a given wavelength and aperture diameter D, this
result specifies the smallest angle that two point objects
can subtend at the aperture and still be resolved.
Rayleigh criterion for resolution
Optical instruments designed to resolve closely spaced objects (small
values of
min
) must utilize the smallest possible wavelength and the
largest possible aperture diameter.
For example, when short-wavelength
ultraviolet light is collected by its large
2.4-m-diameter mirror, the Hubble Space
Telescope is capable of resolving two
closely spaced stars that have an angular
separation of about
min
= 1 x 10
-7
rad. This
angle is equivalent to resolving two
objects only 1 cm apart when they are 1 x
10
5
m (about 62 miles) from the telescope.
The Hubble Space Telescope
Problem: The Human Eye Versus the
Eagles Eye
(a) A hang glider is flying at an
altitude of 120 m. Green light
(wavelength = 555 nm in vacuum)
enters the pilots eye through a
pupil that has a diameter of 2.5
mm. Determine how far apart two
point objects must be on the
ground if the pilot is to have any
hope of distinguishing between
them. (b) An eagles eye has a pupil
with a diameter of 6.2 mm. Repeat
part (a) for an eagle flying at the
same altitude as the glider.
Solution: The Human Eye Versus the
Eagles Eye
(a) For the pilot to have any hope of distinguishing
between the objects, the separation distance must be
at least


(b) For the eagle:


(Since the pupil of the eagles eye is larger than that of
a human eye, diffraction creates less of a limitation for
the eagle; the two objects can be closer together and
still be resolved by the eagles eye.)
What You See is Not What You Get
The French postimpressionist artist Georges Seurat developed a technique of painting
in which dots of color are placed close together on the canvas. From sufficiently far
away the individual dots are not distinguishable, and the images in the picture take on
a more normal appearance. The figure shows a person in an art museum, looking at
one of Seurats paintings. Suppose that this person stands close to the painting, then
backs up until the dots just become indistinguishable to his eyes and takes a picture
from this position.
When he gets home and has the film developed,
however, he can see the individual dots in the
enlarged photograph. Why does the camera
resolve the individual dots, while his eyes do
not? Assume that light enters his eyes through
pupils that have diameters of 2.5 mm and enters
the camera through an aperture, or opening,
with a diameter of 25 mm.
What You See is Not What You Get
The Rayleigh criterion for resolving two point objects
specifies that
min
1.22/D. According to this criterion, a
larger value of the diameter D of the opening means that
the value for
min
is smaller, so that an optical instrument
can be farther away and still resolve the objects. In other
words, a larger value of D means a greater resolving power.
For the eye and the camera the diameters are D
eye
=2.5 mm
and D
camera
=25 mm , so the diameter for the camera is ten
times larger than that for the eye. Thus, at the distance at
which the eye loses its ability to resolve the individual dots
in the painting, the camera can easily resolve the dots. We
conclude, then, that the camera succeeds in resolving the
dots in the painting while the eye fails because the camera
gathers light through a much larger opening.
Diffraction Grating
Diffraction patterns of bright and dark fringes occur when
monochromatic light passes through a single or double slit.
Fringe patterns also result when light passes through more
than two slits, and an arrangement consisting of a large
number of parallel, closely spaced slits called a diffraction
grating, has proved very useful.
Gratings with as many as 40 000 slits per centimeter can be
made, depending on the production method.
In one method a diamond-tipped cutting tool is used to
inscribe closely spaced parallel lines on a glass plate, the
spaces between the lines serving as the slits.
In fact, the number of slits per centimeter is often quoted
as the number of lines per centimeter.
Diffraction Grating
When light passes through a
diffraction grating, a central bright
fringe (m=0) and higher-order
bright fringes (m=1,2,3) form
when the light falls on a distant
viewing screen.
These bright fringes are sometimes
called the principal fringes or
principal maxima, since they are
places where the light intensity is a
maximum. The term principal
distinguishes them from other,
much less bright fringes that are
referred to as secondary fringes or
secondary maxima.

Diffraction Grating
The bright fringes produced
by a diffraction grating are
much narrower than those
produced by a double slit.
Note the three small
secondary bright fringes
between the principal bright
fringes of the grating.
For a large number of slits,
these secondary fringes
become very small.

Problem: Separating Colors with a
Diffraction Grating
A mixture of violet light (=410 nm in vacuum) and
red light (=660 nm in vacuum) falls on a grating that
contains 1.0 x 10
4
lines/cm. For each wavelength, find
the angle that locates the first-order maxima.
Solution: Separating Colors with a
Diffraction Grating
The separation d between the slits is

For violet light, the angle locating the first-order maxima is


Similar calculation for red light
red
=660 x 10
-9
m leads to

red
=41
0
.
Because
red
and
violet
are different, separate first-order
bright fringes are seen for violet and red light on a viewing
screen.

Diffraction Grating
If the light used had been sunlight, the angles for the first-
order maxima would cover all values in the range between
24 and 41, since sunlight contains all colors or
wavelengths between violet and red. Consequently, a
rainbow-like dispersion of the colors would be observed to
either side of the central fringe on a screen.
This drawing shows that the spectrum of
colors associated with the m=2 order is
completely separate from that of the
m=1 order. For higher orders, however,
the spectra from adjacent orders may
overlap. The central maximum is white
because all the colors overlap there.
A Compact Disc Is a Diffraction Grating
Light reflected from the surface of a compact disc is
multicolored. The colors and their intensities depend on
the orientation of the disc relative to the eye and relative to
the light source.
The surface of a compact disc has a spiral grooved track (with
adjacent grooves having a separation on the order of 1 m).
Thus, the surface acts as a reflection grating.
The light reflecting from the regions between these
closely spaced grooves interferes constructively only in
certain directions that depend on the wavelength and on the
direction of the incident light. Any one section of the disc
serves as a diffraction grating for white light, sending
different colors in different directions. The different colors
you see when viewing one section change as the light source,
the disc, or you move to change the angles of incidence or
diffraction.
Polarization
Polarization is a property of waves that describes the
orientation of their oscillations.
For transverse waves, it describes the orientation of the
oscillations in the plane perpendicular to the wave's
direction of travel.
Polarization of Light
An ordinary beam of light consists of a large
number of waves emitted by the atoms of
the light source.
Each atom produces a wave having some
particular orientation of the electric field
vector E, corresponding to the direction of
atomic vibration.
The direction of polarization of each
individual wave is defined to be the
direction in which the electric field is
vibrating.
In the figure, this direction happens to lie
along the y axis. However, an individual
electromagnetic wave could have its E
vector in the yz plane, making any possible
angle with the y axis.
Polarization of Light
Because all directions of vibration from a wave source are
possible, the resultant electromagnetic wave is a
superposition of waves vibrating in many different
directions.
The result is an unpolarized light beam.
The direction of wave propagation in this figure is
perpendicular to the page. The arrows show a few possible
directions of the electric field vectors for the individual
waves making up the resultant beam. At any given point
and at some instant of time, all these individual electric
field vectors add to give one resultant electric field vector.
Polarization of Light
A wave is said to be linearly polarized if the resultant
electric field E vibrates in the same direction at all times
at a particular point, as shown in the figure. (Sometimes,
such a wave is described as plane-polarized, or simply
polarized.)
The plane formed by E and the direction of propagation
is called the plane of polarization of the wave.
It is possible to obtain a linearly polarized beam from an
unpolarized beam by removing all waves from the beam
except those whose electric field vectors oscillate in a
single plane.
Polarization Processes
Polarization by Selective Absorption
Polarization by Reflection
Polarization by Double Refraction
Polarization by Scattering
Polarization by Selective Absorption
The most common technique for producing polarized light is to use a
material that transmits waves whose electric fields vibrate in a plane
parallel to a certain direction and that absorbs waves whose electric
fields vibrate in all other directions.
In 1938, E. H. Land (19091991) discovered a material, which he called
polaroid, that polarizes light through selective absorption by oriented
molecules.
This material is fabricated in thin sheets of long-chain hydrocarbons.
The sheets are stretched during manufacture so that the long-chain
molecules align. After a sheet is dipped into a solution containing
iodine, the molecules become good electrical conductors. However,
conduction takes place primarily along the hydrocarbon chains
because electrons can move easily only along the chains. As a result, the
molecules readily absorb light whose electric field vector is parallel to
their length and allow light through whose electric field vector is
perpendicular to their length.
Polarization by Selective Absorption
Two polarizing sheets whose transmission axes make an
angle with each other. Only a fraction of the polarized
light incident on the analyzer is transmitted through it.
Effect of a polarizer on reflection from mud flats. In the picture on the left, the polarizer
is rotated to transmit the reflections as well as possible; by rotating the polarizer by 90
(picture on the right) almost all specularly reflected sunlight is blocked.
The effects of a polarizing filter on the sky in a photograph. The picture on the right uses
the filter.
Polarization by Reflection
When an unpolarized light beam is reflected from a
surface, the reflected light may be completely
polarized, partially polarized, or unpolarized,
depending on the angle of incidence.
If the angle of incidence is 0, the reflected beam is
unpolarized. For other angles of incidence, the
reflected light is polarized to some extent, and for one
particular angle of incidence, the reflected light is
completely polarized.
Polarization by Reflection
(a) When unpolarized
light is incident on a
reflecting surface, the
reflected and refracted
beams are partially
polarized.
(b) The reflected beam is
completely polarized when
the angle of incidence
equals the polarizing angle

p
, which satisfies the
equation n = tan
p
(Brewsters Law).
Polarization by Reflection
Polarization by reflection is a common phenomenon.
Sunlight reflected from water, glass, and snow is
partially polarized. If the surface is horizontal, the
electric field vector of the reflected light has a strong
horizontal component.
Sunglasses made of polarizing material reduce the
glare of reflected light. The transmission axes of the
lenses are oriented vertically so that they absorb the
strong horizontal component of the reflected light. If
you rotate sunglasses 90, they will not be as effective
at blocking the glare from shiny horizontal surfaces.
Polarization by Double Refraction
Solids can be classified on the basis of internal structure.
Those in which the atoms are arranged in a specific order
are called crystalline( e.g. NaCl structure). Those solids in
which the atoms are distributed randomly are called
amorphous.
When light travels through an amorphous material, such as
glass, it travels with a speed that is the same in all
directions. That is, glass has a single index of refraction.
In certain crystalline materials, however, such as calcite
and quartz, the speed of light is not the same in all
directions. Such materials are characterized by two indices
of refraction. Hence, they are often referred to as double-
refracting or birefringent materials.
Polarization by Double Refraction
Upon entering a calcite crystal, unpolarized light splits into two
plane-polarized rays that travel with different velocities,
corresponding to two angles of refraction, as shown in the figure.
The two rays are polarized in two
mutually perpendicular directions, as
indicated by the dots and arrows. One
ray, called the ordinary (O) ray, is
characterized by an index of refraction
n
O
that is the same in all directions. This
means that if one could place a point
source of light inside the crystal, the
ordinary waves would spread out from
the source as spheres.
Polarization by Double Refraction
The second plane-polarized ray, called the
extraordinary (E) ray, travels with different speeds in
different directions and hence is characterized by an
index of refraction n
E
that varies with the direction of
propagation.
Polarization by Scattering
When light is incident on any material, the electrons
in the material can absorb and reradiate part of the
light.
Such absorption and reradiation of light by electrons
in the gas molecules that make up air is what causes
sunlight reaching an observer on the Earth to be
partially polarized. You can observe this effectcalled
scatteringby looking directly up at the sky through a
pair of sunglasses whose lenses are made of polarizing
material. Less light passes through at certain
orientations of the lenses than at others.
Polarization by Scattering
The figure on the right illustrates how sunlight becomes polarized
when it is scattered.
An unpolarized beam of sunlight traveling in the horizontal
direction (parallel to the ground) strikes a molecule of one of the
gases that make up air, setting the electrons of the molecule into
vibration.
These vibrating charges act like the vibrating charges in an antenna.
The horizontal component of the electric field vector in the incident
wave results in a horizontal component of the vibration of the
charges, and the vertical component of the vector results in a vertical
component of vibration.
If the observer in the figure is looking straight up (perpendicular to
the original direction of propagation of the light), the vertical
oscillations of the charges send no radiation toward the observer.
Thus, the observer sees light that is completely polarized in the
horizontal direction, as indicated by the red arrows.
If the observer looks in other directions, the light is partially
polarized in the horizontal direction.
Polarization by Scattering
Polarization by scattering is observed as light passes
through the atmosphere.
The scattered light produces the brightness and color
in clear skies.
Why does the red color appear at the
horizon during sunset?
The red color in the sky at sunset (and
sunrise) is due to scattering. (Scattering is
also responsible for the white color of
clouds.)
Particles in our atmosphere that are approximately the same size as the
wavelength of visible light cause the white light from the sun to scatter
and split into individual components. Oxygen and Nitrogen (the main
components of our atmosphere) scatter violet and blue light due to
their small size. This is why the sky appears to be blue in the day time,
especially at midday when the Sun is closest to us.
During sunrise and sunset the distance that the light has to travel from
the Sun to an observer is at its greatest. This means the a large amount
of blue and violet light has been scattered so the light that is received
by an observer is mostly of a longer wavelength and therefore appears
to be red.
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