Plane microwaves are incident on a long slit of width 5.0 cm . Determine the wavelength of the microwaves if the first diffraction minimum is observed at = 30^ .

Step-by-step solution

The condition for the diffraction minima in a single slit experiment is given by a = n , where a is the slit width, is the angle of diffraction, n is the order of the minimum, and is the wavelength. For the first diffraction minimum, n = 1 . Given a = 5.0 cm and = 30^ . Substituting the values into the formula: 5.0 30^ = 1 = 5.0 1 2 = 2.5 cm