PHYS 1061 Lecture Notes - Lecture 35: Scotopic Vision, Photopic Vision, Stimulated Emission
Document Summary
Lecture - 35: the spectrum represents the wavelength-by-wavelength content of light. Can represent this in a color graphic like that above. Or can plot intensity vs. wavelength: how do diffraction gratings work, a diffraction grating is a regular array of optical scattering points. Spherical wave emerges from each scattering point. Constructively or destructively interfere at different angles depending on wavelength: another look at diffraction gratings, for a given wavelength, a special angle will result in constructive interference: d sin = (cid:1) This angle is different for different wavelengths: spectral content of light, a spectrum is a plot representing light content on a wavelength-by-wavelength basis. The myriad colors we can perceive are simply different spectral amalgams of light. Much like different instruments have different sound: it depends on its (harmonic) spectral content: example spectra, fluorescent lights, fluorescent lights stimulate emission among atoms like argon, mercury, neon. They do this by ionizing the gas with high voltage.
