User:Jason O Archer/Notebook/PHYC 307L Junior Lab/2008/11/03

PHYC 307L Junior Lab

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Balmer Series Lab 11/3/08 We then observed the wavelength lines for the hydrogen lamp. Again turning the dial counter-clockwise, we saw the following four lines: LINE Violet Blue Blue-Green Red Raw Data 1 (nm) 410-411 434-435 486-487 659-660 Raw Data 2 (nm) 410-411 434-435 486-487 659-660 Raw Data 3 (nm) 410-411 434-435 486-487 659-660 I also observed a bright region in the yellow part of the spectrum, however, it did not focus itself on a specific wavelength. The hydrogen lamp was quite hot after I turned the lamp off. I would expect a similar spectrum for deuterium as for regular hydrogen. I might expect a small difference based on the presence of a single neutron in the deuterium nucleus, which might shift the potential energies slightly. We then observed the following emmision spectrum for the deuterium lamp: LINE Violet Blue Blue-Green Red Raw Data 1 (nm) 410-411 434-435 486-487 659-660 Raw Data 2 (nm) 410-411 434-435 486-487 659-660 Raw Data 3 (nm) 410-411 434-435 486-487 659-660 I observed a similar yellow region in the deuterium lamp of no specific wavelength. Two astonishing things occurred: The hydrogen and deuterium lamps have almost the same spectrum. Both the hydrogen and deuterium lamps have the same spectrum on every measurement. We then observed the spectrum of a krypton lamp (the originial lab called for sodium, but sodium wasn't available and Aram suggested krypton) in order to determine how well we could resolve separate spectral lines. On the violet end of the spectrum (with many lines), I was able to resolve to roughly 1 nm to differentiate separate wavelengths.