Hydrogen and Deuterium
Spectral Line Splitting
This is the grating specroscope used in this lab
The spectral lines of a hydrogen and deuterium
source are split due to their slight difference in reduced mass.
In this experiment the student measures the visual spectral lines of hydrogen
and the line splitting of a hydrogen and deuterium source. To accomplish
this the student must first calibrate the grating spectrometer by looking
at spectral line of known wavelengths of mercury: purple, 435.8 nm; green,
546.1 nm; and yellow doublet, 577.0 nm and 579.1 nm. Once the student
finds the separation of the rulings on the reflection grating, this value
is used to find the wavelengths of hydrogen. Using these values,
the student estimates the value of the Rydberg constant by plotting n-2
versus l-1. Finally the student
looks for the split of the red hydrogen and deuteruim lines by setting
up the spectrometer to maximize the split.
