Laser table experimental set up

He-Ne laser (0.5 mW, green) is used to set up experiments to study diffraction and interference using a single slit, double slits and grating. With the help of a photodiode and amplifier, the distribution of the intensity of the diffracted light is measured. Then by the fitting of the observed intensity profile, one can obtain the slit parameters. These experiments provide an excellent opportunity for the students to understand these important phenomena from a quantitative approach. Through these experiments, a student also develops a skill set (i) to carry out optical experiments with high precision, and (ii) to estimate parameters by fitting a theoretical model with observed data with the error.