Activity no 6
Aim : To observe refraction and lateral deviation of a beam of light incident obliquely on a glass
slab.
Material required: glass slab, white drawing sheet ,drawing board, drawing pins,
protector,pencil.
Theory: as a result of refraction when light emergence from another media there is a lateral
deviation in the original path .the perpendicular distance between the incident ray and the
emergent ray is called lateral deviation. For a given angle of incidence and pair of media, it is
proportional to the thickness of the glass slab.
Ray diagram
Procedure
● Take a drawing sheet and fix it on a drawing board with the help of drawing pins.
● Kurti class lab length wise at the centre of the drawing sheet and make an outline of the
class lab using a sharp pencil mark is as ABCD.
● Not take a point O on side AB and draw perpendicular NN’ at O
● Now from the perpendicular NN’make an angle of incidence NOP starting from 30
degree the line OP represents incident ray.
● Now put the glass slab on the boundary ABCD.
● Now fix some allpins E,F,G on the incident ray vertically at least five cm . apart.
● Fix more pins H,I with looking in glass slab vertically on other side CD such that all pins
E,F,G,H,I lie in the same straight line
● Remove all the pins and draw a line LK by joining holes of the pins with a pencil. The
line LK is known as the emergent ray
● On the point l and k with the help of the pencil which is known as the refracted ray
● Finally produce incident ray EF which becomes parallel to the emergent ray and the
distance between emergent Ray and the produced incident ray is called lateral deviation
and note down the lateral displacement
● Now repeat the procedure by taking different angle of incidence and not down the lateral
displacement in each case.
Observation table
S No Angle of incidence Angle of refraction Lateral displacement
1 30 19 1.1 cm.
2 40 25 1.4 cm.
3 50 35 2 cm.
Result
The lateral division increases on increasing the angle of incidence for same thickness of a glass
slab.
Precautions
● Glass should be clean and uniform thickness
● Fix the pinsVertically on the drawing board.
Sources of error
● Mistake while measuring angles.
● Failure to insert the pins
● exactly on the line.
