PHYS-2326: University Physics-II Ch-38 Khalid Bukhari

SOLUTION TO SIMILAR PROBLEMS

Chapter 38: DIFFRACTION PATTERNS AND POLARIZATION

Q. No.: 1, 2, 5, 13, 14, 15, 24, 36, 41

1. Light of wavelength 540 nm passes through a slit of width 0.200 mm. (a) The width of the central
maximum on a screen is 8.10 mm. How far is the screen from the slit? (b) Determine the width of
the first bright fringe to the side of the central maximum.

2. Helium–neon laser light (  = 632.8 nm) is sent through a 0.300-mm-wide single slit. What is the
width of the central maximum on a screen 1.00 m from the slit?

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PHYS-2326: University Physics-II Ch-38 Khalid Bukhari

5. Coherent microwaves of wavelength 5.00 cm enter a tall, narrow window in a building otherwise
essentially opaque to the microwaves. If the window is 36.0 cm wide, what is the distance from the
central maximum to the first-order minimum along a wall 6.50 m from the window?

13. The angular resolution of a radio telescope is to be 0.100° when the incident waves have a
wavelength of 3.00 mm. What minimum diameter is required for the telescope’s receiving dish?

14. The pupil of a cat’s eye narrows to a vertical slit of width 0.500 mm in daylight. Assume the average
wavelength of the light is 500 nm. What is the angular resolution for horizontally separated mice?

15. The objective lens of a certain refracting telescope has a diameter of 58.0 cm. The telescope is
mounted in a satellite that orbits the Earth at an altitude of 270 km to view objects on the Earth’s
surface. Assuming an average wavelength of 500 nm, find the minimum distance between two
objects on the ground if their images are to be resolved by this lens.

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PHYS-2326: University Physics-II Ch-38 Khalid Bukhari

24. White light is spread out into its spectral components by a diffraction grating. If the grating has
2,000 grooves per centimeter, at what angle does red light of wavelength 640 nm appear in first
order?

36. If the spacing between planes of atoms in a NaCl crystal is 0.281 nm, what is the predicted angle at
which 0.140-nm x-rays are diffracted in a first-order maximum?

41. Unpolarized light passes through two ideal Polaroid sheets. The axis of the first is vertical, and the
axis of the second is at 30.0° to the vertical. What fraction of the incident light is transmitted?