Deflection and Dispersion
Safety Warnings
Warning: Projector Heat
Purpose
Compares deflection and chromatic dispersion across three prism materials (acrylic, glass, ethyl cinnamate). Students learn that deflection angle depends on refractive index while spectral width depends on material dispersion -- two independent properties.
Figure 1:
Three spectra from the stacked prisms projected on paper. Each spectrum has a different deflection angle and spectral width, showing that these properties vary independently across materials.
Figure 2:
The three prisms: ethyl cinnamate liquid prism (left), glass prism (center), and acrylic prism (right). All have the same cross-sectional dimensions but different optical properties.
Equipment
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