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The Diffraction Grating

Part of the Optics, Waves and Modern Physics section of Coddy's Physics journey. Lesson 32 of 53.

A grating: many slits, d = 1/N apart (N lines per length).

The grating's sharp maxima

d sin θ = nλ

sin θ ≤ 1: the order n is at most d/λ.

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Challenge

A grating has N = 300 lines per mm. Blue light of 450 nm falls on it. First find the gap d, then the angle θ of the second-order maximum (n = 2).

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