NEWTON’S RING EXPERIMENTS
Aim
To study the formation of Newton’s rings in the air-film in between a plano-convex
lens and
a glass plate using nearly monochromatic light from a sodium-source and hence to
the radius of curvature of the plano-convex lens.
Apparetus
A nearly monochromatic source of light (source of sodium light)
A plano-convex lens
An optically flat glass plates
A convex lens
A travelling microscope
Theory
When a parallel beam of monochromatic light is incident normally on a combination
of a plano-convex lens L and a glass plate G, as shown in Fig.1, a part of each
incident ray is reflected from the lower surface of the lens, and a part, after refraction
through the air film between the lens and the plate, is reflected back from the plate
surface. These two reflected rays are coherent hence they will interfere and produce a
system of alternate dark and bright rings with the point of contact between the lens
and the plate as the center. These rings are known as Newton’s ring.
For a normal incidence of monochromatic light, the path difference between the
reflected rays (see Fig.1) is very nearly equal to 2 µt where µ and t are the refractive
index and thickness of the air-film respectively. The fact that the wave is reflected
from air to glass
Therefore, for bright fringe
2µt=(n+ )λ; n = 0,1,2,3......(1)
and for dark fringe
2µt =nλ; n = 0,1,2,3........(2)
For n-th (bright or dark) ring (see Fig. 2), we also have
Where Dn= the diameter of the n-th ring and R = the radius of curvature of the lower
surface
of the plano-convex lens. On neglecting t2, equation (3) reduces to
(4)
From equations (1) and (4), we get,
Similarly, from equations (2) and (4), we obtain
Thus for bright as well as dark rings, we obtain
Since µ=1 for air-film, above equation gives
Procedure
1. After going through the theory and pretest, click the "Simulation" tab
2. click on simulator button to skip the test and go to simulator.
3. Select a medium (air) by clicking on the container symbols
4. Click on "Show" button. This will reveal the apparatus.
5. Click on "Show" button. This will reveal the apparatus.
6. Click on "Switch" button. This will show the light source is on. Note the rings
pattern appearing in the field of view of telescope seen at the right top of the
screen
7. .Use microscope controls to observe the motion of travelling microscope.
8. Click on "Next" button to go to the next page of simulator.
9. The simulator will display the interactive questions, attempt the questions
10. Click on "Show Travelling Microscope" button. This will reveal the
experimental setup.
—————––––-–––--
11. Use Microscope movement and lens movement buttons to get resolved
ring pattern
and set the vertical cross wire at appropriate position.
12. To note the readings click on "Add to table" button.
13. To show the graph, click on "Generate graph" button.
14 Click on "Conclusion" button
15. The simulator will display the interactive questions, attempt the questions.
16 .Note the conclusions from the experiment performed.
Observation Table
Least constant of horizontal scale of microscope:
Table 1
Pitch of the screw p (cm) No. of divisions in Least count =p/n (cm)
circular scale (n)
Table 2
Determination of the diameter (D) of the rings
Ring Reading of the microscope in cm. for the , Diameter
No Left end of the ring(R1) Right end of the ring(R2) D
= R1 ~ R 2
M.S.R V.S.R Total=M.S M.S.R V.S.R Total=M.S
.R+V.S.R .R+V.S.R
Determination of R from the data of Table 2
Ring Mean Value Value of Value of D2n+m –D2n Mean R
no. D D2 of n m (cm2) R= in cm
in cm [cm2] n+m
in cm
The radius of plano-convex lens lens is found to be R=
Result……………………
