Fraunhofer diffraction

Fraunhofer diffraction is when you shine a light through a small hole, and it makes a pattern on a screen far away. Imagine you have a flashlight and you shine it at a wall. If you make a tiny hole in a piece of paper and put it in front of the flashlight, the light will only come out of the little hole.

Now, if you take another piece of paper and put it far away from the first one, the light that comes out of the little hole will spread out and make a pattern on the second paper. This happens because of something called diffraction.

Diffraction is like when you push a bunch of people through a door. If the door is wide open, everyone can get through easily. But if the door is only a little bit open, people will have to squeeze through one at a time, and they will all spread out as they exit the door.

When light goes through a small opening, it behaves like the people at the door. The light spreads out and makes a pattern on the screen far away. This pattern is called a diffraction pattern, and it looks like a bunch of rings with different brightness levels.

Scientists use Fraunhofer diffraction to learn about the properties of light and the objects that it passes through. By studying the diffraction pattern, they can figure out how big the hole was, how far away the screen is, and even what kind of material the hole was made out of.

Overall, Fraunhofer diffraction is a cool way to explore the fascinating world of light and how it behaves.