Building Young's Double-Slit Interference Experiment?

TucsonTed asks: "I am a student teacher, preapring for life as a middle or high school teacher. I'd like to build a working model of Young's Double-Slit experiment to show light's wave behavior. Anyone have info on where I can find some blueprints (size of slits, spacing, etc.?) I don't yet have access to a real lab, so I need the DIY approach. I can use monochromatic light or a laser. If you haven't come across this experiment, and its freakish implications at the quantum level, take a look. You may not sleep tonight." For those interested in the math behind this experiment, you might want to check this site.

Comments

Wave/Particle Duality

[cr0sh]

The really interesting part is that the interference pattern persists even down to the point you are shooting single photons through the slits, as long as you can't tell which slit the photon is going through, but once you can tell, the pattern breaks down and you get just a single blur.

That is, it is an interference pattern as long as the photons are 'allowed' to act as waves, as soon as you try to treat them as particles, they behave as particles.

You are attempting to explain the "Wave/Particle Duality" nature of quanta. A very good explanation is located here.

From the sound of the experiment, it looks like they use a "quanta source", rather than a photon source (does such a thing exist? Doesn't sound impossible...) - in such case, an electron gun emitting a very low discharge...

I think that is all correct - of course, I am as far from a quantum physicist as can be - correct me if I am wrong...