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Why is it that when you shine a laser through a slit, it has the pattern that it does!
Why does a laser through a slit create that diffraction pattern?
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crador
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What kind of laser?
What kind of slit?
What kind of pattern?
When I shine a laser pointer through a 1cm slit it makes a single dot pattern on the wall, as expected.
I suspect you are asking about the double slit experiment, or some kind of spectral scattering through a grid of slits though.
What kind of slit?
What kind of pattern?
When I shine a laser pointer through a 1cm slit it makes a single dot pattern on the wall, as expected.
I suspect you are asking about the double slit experiment, or some kind of spectral scattering through a grid of slits though.
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Scheuerf said:
The light waves passing through different parts of the slit interfere with each other, and the result is that pattern. Here's an overview:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/sinslitd.html#c1
And here's a graphical method for calculating the intensity pattern:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/sinint.html#c1
You can also use integral calculus to calculate it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_diffraction_(mathematics)#Solution_by_integration
stedwards
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Something similar. water waves thought single and double slit