1

Physics S-1ab Lab 10: Wave Optics Summer 2007

Introduction
Preparation: Before coming to lab, read the lab handout and all course required
reading in Giancoli through Chapter 25. Be sure to bring to lab: this handout writing
paper, a ruler, a calculator and your copy of the Lab Companion.
Post Lab Questions: At the beginning of your lab section, you will be given an
additional handout with a series of questions to be answered and handed in at the end
of the experiment. Try to answer these questions with one or two concise sentences.
Experiment Overview In Part I you use a machinist rule and a laser to investigate
the interference of light scattered from a periodic set of stripes and from this,
determine the wavelength of the light. In Part II you will use the laser to make
quantitative measurements of light scattered from the surface of a CD to learn about
the microscopic structure of its recorded information.

Part I: Measuring the Wavelength of Light
What happened to the law of reflection?
In this experiment you will use a steel ruler to measure the wavelength of light emitted by a
laser. The laser produces a narrow intense beam of monochromatic (i.e., single wavelength)
light. The ruler has a shiny, metallic finish. Consequently, if you reflect the laser light off the
surface of the ruler, it behaves like a mirror with the angle of reflection equal to the angle of
incidence. However, if you shine the laser beam onto the part of the ruler where the black
division marks are (see Fig. 2), a surprising thing happens: not only does the light reflect at
the expected angle, but one observes that there are many additional reflections. One might
wonder why the law of reflection suddenly seems to be violated just because there are some
non-reflective marks on the ruler.
One way to think about this is to use Huygens wavelet picture in which all reflections are
possible. Every point of the ruler bathed by the incoming laser light will be the source of new
wavelets radiating out in all directions. In most cases, there is cancellation, destructive
interference, for these paths, except for those paths that do not deviate much (less than
from the straight (and minimum length) path (for which the reflected angle equals the
incident angle). However, the non-reflective division marks on the ruler eliminate some of
the possible wavelets, thereby preventing this wholesale cancellation of paths.
2
In other words, the additional bright spots one sees on the wall are due to reflections that are
only possible because we are preventing them from being canceled by destructive
interference. We secure more reflections by arranging for fewer possibilities of reflection!!
Continuing with this line of reasoning thus suggests that the bright spots are due to
constructive interference.

Figure 1, which is not to scale, shows the experimental arrangement. The ruler is placed on a
table about 2 m (distance L) from the wall, and the laser is positioned so that the beam just
strikes near the end of the ruler at a grazing angle
0
(Note that
0
is complementary to the
angle to the normal,
0
). Part of the laser beam misses the ruler completely and continues
undeviated to the wall (direct beam). Many reflections will appear on the wall, but, to keep
the drawing simple, only two are shown in the figure. The brightest reflected spot, the central
bright spot, corresponds to the reflection whose angle is equal to the angle,
0
. Many more
reflection spots will be present, above and below
0
.



You may recall that the bright spots from a diffraction grating occur at angles such that
sin /
n
n d = (1)
but this equation describes light arriving perpendicular to the surface (
0
0 = ). In this lab you
have light arriving at an angle to the normal
0
0 , and for this more general case,
constructive interference (bright spots) occur according to
0
y
1
y
L
laser
ruler
central reflected
bright spot
first spot above
center
wall
direct beam
1

0 0
tan / y L = and
1 1
tan / y L =
Figure 1
0

0

0

0

3

0
sin sin /
n
n d = , where 0,1, 2, ... n = . (2)
[The absolute value is used to ensure a positive value; the sign would otherwise depend on
angle conventions and upon whether the light is being reflected from small stripes (as in this
case) or transmitted through small openings. In this equation, both n and the angles are
positive values.]
Figure 2 shows a more detailed illustration of the light hitting the ruler in our specific
geometry.




The angles
0 1 2
, , , etc. can be determined fairly easily by measurement of distances (see
Figure 1), but their complements
0 1 2
, , , etc. are more difficult to determine directly. Thus
we will use the complementary relationship to rewrite the angle condition as

0
/ cos cos
n
n d = (3)
When d << , as it is in this experiment,
0
cos cos
n
must be extremely small for
equation (3) to be true if n is a small integer (= 1, 2, or 3). However, due to the way in which
cosine varies with the angle for small angles,
0
and
n
can be small yet large enough for
reasonably easy measurement, while
0
cos cos
n
remains very small. This is the secret
why the grazing method will measure wavelengths that are very short compared to the
relatively large spacing on the ruler. Note that all angles in the diagram are shown greatly
exaggerated.

ruler edge
d d = 1/64" = 0.397 mm d
rays to first spot
(above central spot)
rays from incident laser beam
non-reflective
black markings
Figure 2
0

1

4
Measurement procedure
(a) Allow the ruler to slightly overhang the edge of the table then adjust the angle of
the laser beam. The grazing angle should be < 2, and the ruler must be
perpendicular to the wall. Tape a piece of paper on the wall for viewing and
marking the positions of the various spots.
Note : The laser can be kept turned on using a clothes pin, but please turn off the laser
when not performing measurements !
Notice that on your ruler there are a series of marks with different spacings and lengths
interspersed.
Make sure you are using only the 1/64 marks.
(b) Verify which set of marks are producing the spots you see on the wall by sliding
the ruler to the left and right and see sets of spots appear and disappear.
(c) Record as many spots as you can. The angles would be difficult to measure
directly (with a protractor, for example), but the geometry indicated in Figure 1
shows you how to determine the angles by distance measurements.
Hint: The distance from the central bright spot to the place where the direct beam strikes
the wall is
0
2y (see Figure 1).
(d) Make measurements as needed to determine
0
,
1
,
2
, and
3
, then use
Equation (3) to determine the wavelength of the laser light. Also estimate the
uncertainty in your value for the wavelength.
Part II: Determining the Amount of Data on a CD
Now that you have measured the wavelength of the laser using a ruler, you can use the laser
as a ruler to measure the spacing between tracks on a compact disc (CD)! From this, you
may determine the maximum amount of information that can be stored on a CD.
CD diffraction
The surface of a CD is a highly reflective layer containing a spiral path of small marks, or
pits. If stretched out, this spiral would be about 5 km long! The digital data are stored in a
code, according to the pit length and the distance between pits. [Imagine an advanced style of
Morse Code: dot-dash etc.] The pits are arranged along the spiral path in tracks, as shown in
Figure 3. A portion of one track is highlighted by the white box. The depth of each pit is 0.11
m and the width is 0.5 m. Pit length and spacing varies, as can be seen, but the average
spacing from pit to pit is roughly the same size as the distance between the tracks of pits.
5


The tracks of pits and the unbroken stripes between them behave in much the same way as a
reflective diffraction grating, but here the stripes curve gradually around the CD within the
recording area (Figure 3). The fine stripes are why you see beautiful rainbow colors when
white light illuminates the CD.
However, when light of one wavelength (here, a laser beam) is reflected off the disc, a
diffraction pattern is formed. If the angle of incidence is close to the normal, the condition for
constructive interference is identical to that for a transmission diffraction grating (see
Equation 1). In the present example, the rows of pits (tracks) make the grating, and the
distance between the rows of pits, d, can be determined from Equation 1.
By measuring and using your value of from Part I, you can use Equation (1) to calculate
the distance between rows of pits. The experimental arrangement is illustrated in Figure 4.
Measurement procedure
(a) Arrange a disc, laser, and screen in a manner similar to Figure 4a. Direct the
laser beam such that it strikes the CD approximately half way up, as shown in
Figure 4b. Adjust the angle between the laser beam and the CD until the direct
mirror reflection (n = 0) comes back to hit the front of the laser pointer (you may
need to have it hit 2-3mm above where it comes out, in order to see it). Doing
this will insure that the incident laser beam is normal to the surface of the CD.
You should be able to see the first-order maximum (bright spot) on the screen.
data recording area
Figure 3
Photograph of pits on a CD. From On the Surface of
Things, by Felice Frankel and George Whitesides.
6
(b) Measure distances as needed to determine the angle of the first-order maximum
(bright spot), then calculate the spacing d from Equation (1).

laser
screen
CD
CD
laser
beam
Figure 4a 4b


Information stored on a CD
Now calculate the maximum amount of information (number of pits or, literally, bits of
information) that can be put on a CD.
(c) First, calculate the area occupied by one bit, using the simple model that it
occupies a rectangle of width d and length l. To simplify things, assume that, on
average, l is equal to d.
(d) Now calculate the area of the CD that is actually recorded with data. You will
need to measure the radii of the circles defining the recorded area on your CD,
and remember that the area of a circular band is the difference of the areas of the
large and small circles.
The total number of bits that can be recorded is then the total recorded area divided by the
area for each bit. How many bits can be stored on the CD?
Data amounts are more often given in bytes, where 1byte = 8 bits. Also, 1 MB = 1 megabyte
=
6
10 bytes. Based on your simple model and your measurements, how many megabytes can
be stored on the CD?
The actual amount of storage on a CD is about 650 to 700MB.
7
Additional comments
You may be interested to know that the table of contents for the whole CD is recorded on the
lead-in portion consisting of about 30 tracks (one track equals one trip around the disc). The
width of this program area corresponds to the thickness of one human hair. To detect
individual pits, the laser beam must be focused down to a spot about 1m in diameter. This
should give you an idea of how remarkably spatially coherent the light is and an appreciation
for the technological obstacles that must be overcome to track these bits of information. The
CD player is literally operating at the diffraction limit (resolution) of light! And now we
have DVD discs! Check the table below for a comparison between DVD and CD discs.

Specifications CD DVD
Disc Diameter 120 mm 120 mm
Disc thickness 1.2 mm 1.2 mm
Disc structure Single substrate Two bonded 0.6mm
substrates
Laser wavelength 780 nm (infrared) 650 and 635 nm (red)
Numerical aperture 0.45 0.60
Track pitch
1.6 m 0.74 m
Shortest pit/land length
.83 m 0.4 m
Data layers 1 1 or 2
Data capacity 680 megabytes Single layer 4.7 gigabytes
Dual layer 8.5 gigabytes
Data rate Data rate 165 kilobytes/sec Data rate 1,000 kilobytes/sec