Question

fingerprints left on a piece of glass such as a windowpane can show colored spectra like that from a diffraction grating. why?

Answer 1

The skin oils from the finger will deposit on smooth surfaces in the pattern of the closely spaced ridges when the finger contacts them.

What is diffraction ?

The Huygens-Fresnel principle, which views each point in a propagating wave front as a collection of unique spherical wavelets, describes the diffraction phenomenon in classical physics. When a wave from a coherent source (such a laser) comes into contact with a slit or aperture that is roughly the same size as its wavelength, the characteristic bending pattern is most noticeable.

There are numerous closely spaced ridges and swirls on the skin of a fingertip. The skin oils from the finger will deposit on smooth surfaces in the pattern of the closely spaced ridges when the finger contacts them. In order to create a crude diffraction grating and create a coloured spectrum of the light travelling through or reflecting from the glass surface, open intervals between the lines of deposited oil can be used as slits.

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