What should be the width of the slit in single slit diffraction experiment? If the wavelength is taken lambda while doing experiment.
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$\begingroup$ What do you mean by order? $\endgroup$– jinaweeCommented Feb 25, 2015 at 21:03
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1$\begingroup$ Do you mean how wide the slit is, and not the depth of the mask itself? $\endgroup$– BMSCommented Feb 25, 2015 at 21:09
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$\begingroup$ I had not used word depth and What is mask? $\endgroup$– harshit yagyasenCommented Feb 25, 2015 at 21:14
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2 Answers
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It depends entirely on the wavelength of the wave medium you are trying to diffract. If you are talking about light you need a monochromatic source (one wavelength) that has a wavelength in the range of 650-700 nanometers. For maximum diffraction the slit with in the diffraction mask should be of the order of this wavelength.
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$\begingroup$ Answer Helped but why the deffraction mask should be of the order of lambda wavelength. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 25, 2015 at 21:45
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$\begingroup$ See this post physics.stackexchange.com/questions/202072/… $\endgroup$– pillow47Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 1:22
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The formula for the diffraction maxima involves the $\sin\theta$, where $\theta$ is the angle between the (virtual) line from the slit to the zero order maximum and the line fromt he slit to the nth order maximum.
Keep in mind that $\sin\theta$ must be less than 1. This will place an absolute limit on the minimum size of the slit. The actual angular size of the screen you use will limit the practical size of the slit. Both of these will also depend on the wavelength being used.
