Both these experiments have double slits but in one interference takes place and in the other both interference and diffraction. If diffraction takes place in double slit diffraction then it should also take place in Young's double slit experiment. How to explain the difference between the two?
[Physics] Difference between Youngs double slit experiment and Double slit diffraction
diffractiondouble-slit-experimentinterferencewaves
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After you put a detector, the basis of states becomes a tensor product of the states of the particle (with the two states meaning: came from this or that slit) and the ones of the detector (went through this slit or not).
So the cross terms that appear when you evaluate the probability of having reached a given position at the final screen coming from one or another slit, are now orthogonal (there is no overlapping of the detector states, otherwise the detector would be useless) and don't contribute to the probability, so you recover the classic result.
So basically, you'd get a no-fringe pattern whether or not you let multiple electrons through at a time, as long as you lace a detector
And this gives rise to a very interesting question: because, if you put the detector after the screen (for example a very fine, ideal, bubble chamber that could give you the direction the electron had) the result would be the same, and that is deeply counterintuitive (the classical physicist would scratch his/her head wondering: does the partice see into the future too?)
All I got was two parallel bright fringes instead, like the ones you would get by shining a torch through two very thick slits.
It means the separation between slit is not close and the slits size is not small enough! Those two light beam must overlap to have interference. Small slit size is required to have large diffraction, the optimal slit size is certainly small than wavelength $\lesssim\lambda\approx0.5\mu m$ which gives you large diffraction. However, larger slits size is ok, but you have to (a) Make two slits as close as possible (b) move the setup far from the screen. You will know that it is enough when the light beam can overlap.
For the slit, you need better tools than a knife as well as a better material. First, you should use a shape cutter. Second, you need a material that can have a sharper edge such as film. I believe that film was used in the first few experiments of this kind. You have mentioned a hair is enough so $10\mu m$ should probably be ok, you just need to move the screen further away.
For the light source, you should always use a laser, since a high coherent light is required. Any laser out there is ok, it just cost 1 dollar and I can sure you can borrow a laser pointer near you. As I remember when I was doing Michelson Morley experiment, a tungsten light only gives interference pattern for $<0.1m$ with short coherent length, but a laser can have coherent length $>2m$. It means your life can be easier as you can use a 20 times larger slit with a laser!
Edit: Additional info on the methods Young used for this experiment.
The wiki about Young' interference experiment has quoted his paper on "On the nature of light and colours" (Also around page p.140 in the book Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences). The relevant excerpt is:
In order that the effects of two portions of light may be thus combined, it is necessary that they be derived from the same origin, and that they arrive at the same point by different paths, in directions not much deviating from each other. This deviation may be produced in one or both of the portions by diffraction, by reflection, by refraction, or by any of these effects combined; but the simplest case appears to be, when a beam of homogeneous light falls on a screen in which there are two very small holes or slits, which may be considered as centres of divergence, from whence the light is diffracted in every direction.
So, I guess the experiments were carried out as follow:
- Light source: In a room with all windows covered with thick curtains so that the inside is completely dark. Then let a small beam of sunlight go in.
- Monochromatic light: Use prism to split light into different color (This is known method back to Netwon). To get high quality single frequency light, a slit is required in front of prism to get a narrow sunlight beam.
- Point source of monochromatic light: Add another slit to get the required color (S1 in Fig. 1), the output monochromatic light is therefore from a single point source.
- Interference: Add another double slits (S2 in Fig. 1) so that the light can have two different path. Make sure that light from S1 falls on the slits S2. To ease observations, the screen should be far away.
Since his results cover all color, so it is very likely that he used sunlight rather than other light source such as candle (There was no light bulk at that time). Also, there is no diffraction grating, so it is likely that he was just using a simple prism.
For home experiments carried out these day, we can use LED as a monochromatic light source so that step 1 and 2 can be skipped. If you use a torch, you still need the step 2.
Best Answer
Interference and diffraction are the same thing. In fact so is refraction.
The propagation of light is conveniently described using the Huygens-Fresnel principle. The amplitude of the EM wave at a point is calculated by summing up the amplitudes of all the EM waves reaching that point, taking the relative phases into account. This describes the phenomena we variously refer to as interference, diffraction and refraction. The separate names are largely an accident of history (and for convenience I suppose) - the underlying physical principle is the same.