Microwave Experiment

Phys2055
Christopher Raymond 42188207, Kyle Muzyczka
4/18/2011
Microwave Experiment

Abstract: This experiment is to investigate several properties of waves that can be measured on a macro
scale using microwave radiation. Once these properties have been analyzed, experimentally calculated
wavelengths were compared to a theoretical value of 2.86 cm. The two experimentally determined
values for the wavelength were 2.92cm and 2.49cm, which are within 2% and 13% respectively, of the
theoretically determined wavelength.

Introduction: The aim of this experiment was to measure various features of transmission of
microwaves, and then relate interference patterns to the wavelength of the radiation.

Theory: Electromagnetic radiation is a wave that creates an electric and magnetic field as it travels.
These electromagnetic waves can be reflected off surfaces, for example light. The energy of the wave
can be attributed to several factors, one of them is the wavelength of the radiation. A single wavelength
is the distance from one peak to the next consecutive peak of the wave.

For this experiment, microwave radiation is being used. This allows the apparatus to be scaled up in size,
from what might normally be used when analyzing light, which has a much shorter wavelength. By using
the equation
  , where c is the speed of light, f is the frequency of the wave and λ is the
wavelength, it is possible to get a theoretical value for the wavelength of the radiation emitted by the
transmitter in the experiment. The frequency quoted on the transmitter was 10.5 GHz, using that value,
and c = 3x10^8 m/s, the theoretical value for the wavelength of the radiation emitted was 2.86cm.

The radiation used in the experiment bounces off objects easily at short distances. This meant that there
was a standing wave interference pattern formed in the area between the transmitter and receiver.
Standing wave interference occurs when an incoming wave, output from the transmitter, interacts with
reflected radiation, coming back in the opposite direction, after bouncing off the receiver. This
interaction between the two waves is characterized by the two electric fields created by the waves
interacting. There are points of constructive and destructive interference in standing waves. Points of
constructive interference occur when the electric fields have components that add in the same
direction. This causes an area where the electric fields in that space (and waves propagating through it)
have greater intensity. Destructive interference occurs when the opposite interaction takes place
between the transmitted and reflected waves. When the electric field components from the two waves
are in opposing directions they cancel each other, reducing the strength of the overall field, and the
intensity of the wave. These effects are noticeable in this experiment, and occur in areas referred to as
nodes (constructive) and anti-nodes (destructive).

The double slit section of the experiment allows measuring of the nodes and anti-nodes created by
diffraction patterns. Diffraction occurs when a wave is passed through a gap where the width of the gap
is less than the wavelength of the wave. The wave appears to begin semi-circular propagation after
passing through the slit. When two slits are placed next to each other, the waves propagated by both
slits begin to interact, in the same way that occurs in the standing wave case. The nodes appear at
angles according to the equation:


  

Where d is the distance between the slits.

Lloyd’s mirror causes standing wave interference by reflecting radiation off a surface parallel to the
direction of transmittance. By varying the distance of the reflecting plate, the field of nodes and
antinodes changes.

Method: The microwave experiment involved firing microwave radiation from a transmitter, to a
receiver. The experiment was conducted in three main parts;

The first part was to measure the effects of moving the receiver on the intensity of the incoming wave.
The first measurements were taken in order to measure the effect of moving the receiver directly away
from the transmitter. An effect was noticed during this part of the experiment, which showed there was
a standing wave interference pattern in the data. Because of this, data was taken at both very short, and
long intervals. The very short intervals (2mm) are taken to try to show that there is a standing wave
interference pattern between the transmitter and the receiver, and the longer intervals (5cm) are to
plot the decay of intensity with respect to distance.

Effects due to angle were also measured, so to plot the fall of intensity as the angle of the receiver is
changed. This can also give an idea as to the emitted radiation field of the transmitting antenna.
Radiation intensity was measured while rotating both the receiver about its base, and rotating it around
the goniometer.

Part 2 of the experiment involved investigating double slit interference effects. This was done by
creating a double slit using a series of magnetized plates. The distance between the slit was varied for 3
different runs, and the slit spacing was kept constant at 1.5cm for each trial. By tuning the receiver to a
maximum at the 180 degree point of the goniometer, the interference pattern could be measured by
rotating the receiver around the center-point on the apparatus where the slits had been placed. There is
a point that holds the slits in place on the goniometer.

Part 3 of the experiment investigated Lloyd’s mirror, and the effects of placing a reflector parallel to the
axis between the transmitter and receiver. Measurements of how far away the reflector was from the
axis, were taken at two distances where the receiver registered a maximum point. These points can be
compared in order to give a wavelength for the radiation from the transmitter.
Analysis: The graphs used in this section were generated using Matlab, with my experiment partner
Kyle.

The initial graph shows the effect of distance on the intensity of the radiation. Note that the data
displayed on the graphs has been normalized. This has been done so that there is a constant measure of
intensity, that is uniformly applied over all the data recorded, when it comes to graphing. The first
graphs of how much the intensity falls off with distance, were measured between 55-90cm at 5cm
intervals with an error 0.2 cm. Intensity could be measured to within 0.1, on the meter attached to the
receiver. These plots use data found in table 2, contained in the appendix.
For the above graph the distance data was also normalized. As you can see the error in this portion of
the experiment was very low, as the data could be read with high precision. The graph is showing that
the intensity falls off at 1/R^2, and showing point source style radiation emitted from the transmitter.

By fitting these points with a quadratic line the following graphs are generated.
The initial plot shows the relationship of the points to a standard x^2 polynomial fit. The second graph
shows the points, plotted along-side of a 1/R^2 graph. This shows that the actual data fell off slightly
faster than 1/R^2 in the experiment. This falling off faster could be because of the reflected effects and
the standing wave.

The next graphs show the standing wave patterns formed in the area between the transmitter and
receiver, due to reflected radiation.

Plots use data from table 3. These two plots are of the data taken from 57cm to 60cm taking
measurements every 2cm. The first plot shows the error on the data, and the second shows a Sine curve
plotted as a fit by Matlab. It is very clear that there is a sinusoidal standing wave formed over small
distances. It’s clearer in the second graph that there is still an overall drop in intensity from the
beginning to the end of the measured area. This can be interpreted as the intensity of the wave
dropping off with distance. The final peak of the function in the plot is substantially lower than the first,
and this effect is the same for the first and second minimum points.
Plots use data from table 1. These next two plots show the same effect using the data taken 87-90cm
away from the transmitter. The second fit line plot shows even more clearly the gradual decline of the
sine wave due to the extra distance. This means that the wave travelling in the experiment can be
modeled as decaying as





Where alpha is a modifier that relates the frequency of the sine wave to the wavelength of the sine
wave (in this case the wavelength was approximately 1.4cm). Note that the sine wave still decays as
1/R^2.
The effect of rotating the receiver on its own point shows the drop off of radiation intensity due to its
polarization. Plot uses data from table 4.

From this graph it’s very easy to see that as the rotation of the receiver approaches π/2, there is no
more intensity reaching it. This effect is well within expected values, and shows the polarization of the
waves very well. The point 0 radians is the upright position, then the receiver was slowly turned through
π/2 radians to the point where there was no longer a visible reading on the receiver.

The remaining section from part A of the experiment involved moving the receiver about the rotation of
the goniometer. This experiment allowed very interesting results to be seen about the shape of the
emitted field from the horn antenna. The first two plots show the radiation intensity against radians,
where the first has error values taken from the measurements, and the second has a fit line generated
in Matlab. The second two plots are polar graphs also generated using Matlab that clearly show the field
of the antenna. This was done by plotting intensity as the radial length and angle in radians onto the
plot. All plots use data from table 5.
It’s very easily shown that the intensity gradually falls off as the angle is increased to approximately 0.4π
radians either side of the axis of transmission. The next two plots take this data and show the polar
relationship between the data.

The raw data can be seen here as a narrow band within a 60 degree arc. It’s very clear that the intensity
drops to 0 as the angle approaches π/6 radians either side of the zero. Using this data we can see the
field created by the antenna.
This graph is in accordance with the standard emission pattern from a single horned antenna. The data
plotted well in this case and clearly shows the relationship between angle and intensity. One interesting
point to note is that there is slightly higher intensity between 0-330 on the polar plot, when compared
to the other side. This is most likely due to the effect of the wall next to the apparatus causing some of
the radiation to be reflected back. This would also explain why this effect occurs on this side of the
graph, because between 0-30 degrees, the receiver is pointing away from the wall where there might be
some reflection of the radiation.

DOUBLE SLIT

The double slit portion of the experiment caused some very interesting results. The experiment was
completed three times, each with different distances between the slits. The first time the experiment
was run, the results showed defined individual peaks, this experiment used slit spacing of 5.6cm (error
of 0.1cm)

Plot uses data from table 6. One point to notice is that the peak on the right hand side is comparable in
intensity to the main peak of the pattern. This is most likely because of reflected radiation off the wall
which is interfering with the results on the right hand side of the goniometer. The other two runs of the
experiment yielded unusable results. The results from these runs are tabulated below.
 part 1 Angle Error Intensity error
(degrees) (degrees) (normalized)
125-135 5 0.1 0.02
145-155 5 0.1 0.02
160-170 5 0.1 0.02
190-200 5 0.1 0.02
205-215 5 0.1 0.02
225-235 5 0.1 0.02
part 2
130-145 5 0.1 0.02
155-165 5 0.1 0.02
195-205 5 0.1 0.02
215-230 5 0.1 0.02
Part 1 refers to data taken when the distance between the slits was 10cm, and part 2 refers to spacing of
7 cm. Both of these trials caused extremely low values for intensity to be found over a range of angles.
The main peak was nearly identical to that measured in the initial trial, where by the main intensity was
1.0 on a normalized scale, and fell off to 0 over a range of 5 degrees in either direction. But for all the
other measurements taken at these slit distances, we were unable to get anything more than a slight
rise in intensity, even on the highest setting of the receiver. There was not enough fluctuation in the
intensity to get a reading, only a constant, very low, intensity over a broad range of angles.

This may be due to further interference effects, but is most likely due the loss of contrast evident in the
double slit experiment as the distance between the two slits is widened.

In order to calculate the wavelength from the double slit part of the experiment, the equation:


  

was used, along with the small angle approximation. The small angle approximation states that sin(x) =
x, and this is a valid approximation in this case (changing this makes the double slit appear as if its
travelled onto a flat surface at the distance of the receiver which doesn’t appear in the formula above),
and allows the wavelength to be expressed as:




Using the second peak with the small angle formula, λ = 2.92+/- 0.3cm, which when compared to the
expected value, generated theoretically from the frequency of the transmitter, is out by approximately
2%.
For the Lloyd’s Mirror section of the experiment, data was taken over two positions:

Lloyd's Mirror Distance (cm) error

h1 17.3 0.2
h2 20.8 0.2
For this data, the distance between the receiver and the transmitter was 100+/- 0.2 cm. Using the
equation:

    

Where s is the distance that the reflected waves have to travel, x is the distance from the transmitter to
the axis of the mirror, and n is an integer attached to the wavelength. We can see that major nodes
appear at the points where the difference between the reflected distances are multiples of wavelengths.
So this means that:

    

Where


   
 


So by this trigonometric relation, we arrive at a value for λ of 2.49+/-0.02cm. This value for the
wavelength differs from the theoretical value by 13%.

Discussion:

This experiment had some interesting results, especially in the first part of the results, looking at how
the intensity falls off with distance. The standing interference wave that was found in the first part of
the experiment had a wavelength approximately half of the transmitted wave used in the experiment.
This is most likely due to the reflection of the wave of nearby surfaces. It was easy to see that the
experiment was sensitive to other sources of reflection. This can be seen in the results for rotation of
the goniometer and the double slit results, wherein the data recorded when the receiver was facing the
nearby wall, had slightly stronger intensity then that measured facing away from the wall. It was also
evidenced, although not in the results, by large fluctuations (normalized to between 0.2 and 0.4 points
on the intensity scale of 0-1) when a person passed within a reasonable distance (approximately 50cm)
of the back of the receiver. The reflected waves could have created a separate series of nodes and anti-
nodes. Another possible explanation is that the wave reflected off the receiver is slightly out of phase.
Because the measurements of the standing wave interference only being conducted over such a short
interval (3cm), there wasn’t enough data to conclusively say whether or not a phase shift in the
reflected wave was enough to cause the change. Another point in evidence of the phase shift idea is that
the fluctuation in amplitude of the sine wave is quite small, but this could be due to loss of energy
following the reflection of the incoming wave.
The double slit experiment had an interesting problem arise with it. During the trials when the slit
spacer was widened (7cm and 10cm), there was no usable data generated in the experiment. The
intensity was too low to be able to get data for the fluctuation of intensity over an angle, but there was
enough a change in intensity to see that there was at least something going on over a large range of
degrees. This loss of intensity is most probably due to the loss of contrast when the spacing between
slits is increased. It can be seen that as the distance between the slits is increased, there are more areas
that register an intensity, but the areas seem to become more difficult to define readings for. It might
become easier to get usable data in the case of optical light, where the interference pattern can be
seen, but in this case it was too difficult to find exactly where the nodes formed, and this meant that
there was no way to deduce a wavelength for these trials.

The Lloyds mirror experiment was very smooth, there were no large errors that seemed to be evident in
the results. The difference in the wavelength from this experimental value to the theoretical, could
have maybe been caused by using too large a reflecting plate. With a plate that is too wide, there would
be overlap between the incoming waves, also there may have been more interference with other
reflected waves.

Ideally the entire experiment should be done in an area that is microwave absorbent, so to ensure that
there is no reflection from nearby walls and objects. This would eliminate much of the experimental
error, especially in the case of the goniometer rotation and the double slit experiment.

The actual values achieved experimentally for the wavelength of the radiation was very close to the
theoretical value. In the case of the double slit experiment the difference between the two values was
only 2%. This number is very accurate, and a surprising result, given that there was a large amount of
fluctuation in the intensity of the double slit experiment. In the Lloyd’s mirror section, the error of 13%
seemed quite reasonable. Given the uncertainties, and the amount of interference occurring in the
experiment, the value of 13% seems allowable, and confirms the validity of the Lloyd’s mirror trials.

In conclusion the experiment was definitely successful. The initial part of the experiment showed quite
well that not only does the intensity pattern drop of at a rate of 1/R^2, but there is also a standing wave
interference pattern that forms between the transmitter and the receiver. The effects of polarization
were easily seen in the data of when the receiver was rotated around its own base, and the emitted
field of a horned antenna was measured during the rotation of the receiver about the goniometer.

The Double slit and Lloyd’s mirror sections of the experiment confirmed the wavelength of the radiation
to a substantial level of accuracy and in the case of Lloyd’s mirror, a good level of precision (error was
only about 1% in the final reading).
APPENDIX:

All raw data can be found in the appendix:

distance (cm) error intensity error

(cm)
90 0.2 2.95 0.1
89.8 3.05
89.6 2.7
89.4 2.3
89.2 2.1
89 2.25
88.8 2.65
88.6 3.2
88.4 3.35
88.2 3
88 2.6
87.8 2.3
87.6 2.4
87.4 2.8
87.2 3.3
87 3.55
Table 1: is for the data taken at short intervals, long distance from the transmitter.

distance (cm) error intenstiy error

(cm)
90 0.2 2.95 0.1
85 2.8
80 4.25
75 4.2
70 5.25
65 6.8
60 7.6
55 10
Table 2: data taken at long intervals.
Distance (cm) error intensity error
(cm)
60 0.2 7.5 0.1
59.8 8.5
59.6 9
59.4 8.8
59.2 8.3
59 7.9
58.8 7.6
58.6 7.95
58.4 8.45
58.2 9.6
58 9.5
57.8 8.8
57.6 8.4
57.4 8
57.2 7.95
57 8.8
Table 3: data taken at short intervals, small distance from transmitter.

angle error intensity error

(degrees)
0 1 8.9 0.1
5 8.75
10 8.6
15 8.35
20 7.95
25 7.45
30 6.75
35 6
40 5.5
45 4.05
50 3.1
55 2.05
60 1.1
65 0.5
70 0.2
Table 4: Data for the rotation of the receiver about its base.
angle error intensity error
(degrees)
160 0.5 0.4 0.1
162 1.4
164 2.35
166 3.65
168 4.5
170 5.35
172 6.4
174 7.45
176 8.1
178 8.55
180 8.8
182 8.6
184 8.05
186 7.05
188 5.9
190 4.9
192 4.05
194 3.05
196 1.95
198 0.95
200 0.4
Table 5: rotation of receiver about the goniometer.

angle (degrees) error intensity error

(degrees)
145 0.5 2.4 0.1
150 0.5 4 0.1
155 0.5 2.2 0.1
165 0.5 0 0.1
170 0.5 0 0.1
175 0.5 3.8 0.1
180 0.5 5.5 0.1
185 0.5 4 0.1
190 0.5 0 0.1
205 0.5 1.4 0.1
210 0.5 5.6 0.1
215 0.5 2.6 0.1
220 0.5 0.6 0.1
225 0.5 0 0.1
Table 6: data for intensity of the double slit experiment.
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