Lab Report six sample for Physics 204. Includes extended descriptions for Introduction, Methods, Calculations, Discussion, and Conclusion to help ensure full marks in your reports. Please beware plagiarism as you look the document over and for any questions, refer to your TA.
Light plays a huge role in the way we interact with our environment. Evolutionarily
speaking, the very fact that we have developed organs built solely to detect light and changes in
its intensity shows how important it is in our lives. In the 1600s, it was discovered that light –
which we define currently as electromagnetic waves originating from photon-emitting sources –
behave similarly to waves. Apart from simply allowing us to see and interact with things in our
environment, in our daily lives, the importance of light can be seen in the use of the properties of
light in optical instruments like telescopes, in cameras, and in lasers. In the field of physics, the
properties of light particularly contribute to the foundations of optics.
When it comes to the way light behaves as a wave, it follows the same behaviors to
constructive and destructive interferences as in physical waves. Constructive interference is
when the maximum amplitude of two waves adds together, creating a wave that is equal to the
sum of the individual amplitudes. Destructive interference is when the maximum amplitude of
two waves going in the opposite directions add together, cancelling each other out. This follows
the principle of superposition in physical waves and can be seen in light as well due to its wave-
like properties. The main idea behind this lab is to demonstrate the wave-like nature of light and
using this nature to calculate for its other properties, thus predicting its behavior.
Procedure:
For experiment “Large opening and Incoherent Light,” to see what happens to regular,
incoherent white light as it passes through an aperture, an index card was taken, and a rectangle
slit of 2 millimeters width was cut out of it using scissors to make an aperture. An incandescent
source was used as the incoherent light source and was placed on an optics track alongside a
, 2
screen following the setup shown in Figure 1. The aperture was held in front of the light source.
An intensity profile it was drawn based on the shape of the light reflected on the screen (Data).
Figure 1: Set up for the experiment “Large opening and Incoherent Light.”
Then, for experiment “Small slits with Incoherent Light,” a slide with a single slit of
around 150 μm length was put on the optics track instead of the index card as shown in Figure 2.
A prediction was made for the behavior of incoherent light as it passes through the single slit
slide. The slide was then switched with a slide with part number 1000885 which had 3 single
slits vertically aligned on the bottom of the slide and placed 10-15 cm away from the light source
and observed on the lower section of the screen. An intensity graph was made from this
observation as well (Data).
Figure 2: Set up for the experiment “Small slits with Incoherent Light.”
For experiment “A Coherent Source, and a Single Slit,” the slide with three single slits
was again put on the optics track and adjusted so that light would only pass through the middle
slit. Instead of the incandescent source, a laser was used as the light source. A prediction was
then made for the behavior of coherent, monochromatic light as it passes through the single slit
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