This is a really great experiment.

It looks like the distortion is a squeezed distortion, where the x-axis is shrunk around a point. That seems more like the result of a physical difference in how the diffraction grating was squeezed. You might want to repeat the experiment two more times and plot all six spectra together (three lines with one color, three lines with another color). That'll give you some visual idea of how much physically manipulating the grating distorts the reading.

The amplitudes would be the most likely way in which the dye would distort the results. You can see that the amplitudes in the shorter wavelengths are more diminished with no dye in the low wavelengths. I have no idea why the dye would cause an increase in low-wavelength diffraction. If anything, I would expect the purple dye to absorb, and thus diminish the amplitude of, the very low and very high wavelengths (red and blue).

The "squeezing" referred to in the previous comment is, I believe, actually a result of the way that Spectral Workbench uses the two reference points and then scales the X axis accordingly. I believe also that the variation in the X axis calibration is due to the variability in accuracy of the Spectral Workbench calibration procedure. The grating in my rig is not bent in any way and in fact I do not have any mechanism in place to intentionally bend the grating. Repeating the capture several times and trying to plot the results together could well only increase confusion because of the SW variation in calibrating the X axis.

The way I interpret the results is that the dye does adsorb the longer wavelengths. Rather than scale the curves so that the green peak for both was the same I could have scaled the 'with dye' curve so that the amplitude peaks for the shorter wavelengths were the same. The longer wavelength peaks for the 'with dye' curve would then be lower in amplitude than the long wavelength peaks for the 'no dye' curve. As I say the variation between the curves in the X or wavelength axis is, I think, just due to variations in the precision of the calibration.

Good point on the potential for software to warp the x-axis.

"Repeating the capture several times and trying to plot the results together could well only increase confusion because of the SW variation in calibrating the X axis." You're right. It could absolutely increase the confusion. That's called discovering how much error is caused by unmeasured factors, such as physical distortion or Mapknitter x-axis mapping. If the results are too confusing to comprehend, then we cannot scientifically say there is any measurable difference between the two causes (dye and no dye). That is scientifically relevant, and an important component of experimental design and analysis.

OK but my intention was not to measure inaccuracy / repeatability in the wavelength measurement, or highlight any errors in the Spectral Workbench calibration procedure. It was rather a fairly quick test to see if I could measure a difference in amplitude between 'dye' and 'no dye'. Since there is a variation between the two test curves in both amplitude and wavelength it makes interpreting the result more difficult than if the variation were in amplitude alone. Unless you just ignore it. In any case, over the visible range, the wavelength error is really quite small. It is under 2%. It just looks obvious when plotted. In retrospect I could have repeated the test several times. As it happens I didn't, although now you have suggested it, I might. I suppose I could just average 3 plots for 'with dye' and 3 plots 'no dye' and still end up with two curves to compare amplitude. I think I have documented all the conditions well enough that perhaps someone else can repeat the experiment to see if they can duplicate the results. I'm more than happy for someone to do that.

I agree that looking over repeats will be difficult. I think it is worth it to draw any conclusions.

As much as I like your experiment, the lack of repeats means your single experiment and single result could be completely anecdotal. The perceived change could be due to unaccounted measurement error rather than the seeming controlled factor of dye or not. That's all I'm getting at.

this is awesome!

there should be two green peaks. we need to re-work the calibration procedure now that our equipment is sensitive enough to see them.

This is a great discussion, and of a type that is rare on this site. Usually the question being asked, the methods used to answer it, and the results of the observations are not articulated well enough for anyone to know whether the conclusions are valid or not. In this case, Terry described a question that arose from an observation he made, then formulated a relevant hypothesis, then devised a method to test the hypothesis, then performed the test and found that the result was consistent with his hypothesis. All this is clearly presented in this note. Bryan is correct that we don't know how much variability there is in the system used to make the test, so we don't know whether the same result would arise if the test were repeated. Bryan thinks that is Terry's problem, but I think the problem belongs to Bryan (and to the rest of us). Unlike most Public Lab authors, Terry has presented all the information needed to reproduce his test. Until someone does that, I consider Terry's result to be the scientific truth. If we have a hypothesis about some alternate explanation for Terry's result, it is up to us to devise a test and perform it. Isn't that the way it works?

Fleischmann and Pons published one paper on cold fusion and sparked hundreds of attempts to reproduce the result. Another paper by Fleischmann and Pons was the last thing we needed to find the truth.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry if my initial response seemed overly protective of my results. I hope I don't wind up like Fleischmann and Pons ! I have now repeated the experiment and this time I was super careful about adjusting my captures to be just on the point of clipping, which gave me a clearer view of the green double peak and allowed me to more precisely choose the longer wavelength of the two. This has refined my results. Although this second test still supports my hypothesis about the effect of the dye it shows an even greater increase in the red wavelengths relative to the shorter wavelengths when the 'no dye' grating its used. With the dye and switched to the component colour view I could see the blue and green tending to clip, then with the 'no dye' I could see green and red tending to clip.

replication! nice! I want to try this out too.

I'm going to throw a binder clip in the kit- great idea!- much better than taping it down for re-adjustment and playing around like this.

Following my repeat experiment I have been thinking about the IR response of the PL spectrometer. I haven't been that concerned about it because it was not of immediate interest to me. I haven't tried removing the IR filters from any of the 3 spectrometers I have now built. However given the even more obvious attenuation of the low frequencies in my most recent plots I do wonder if the DVD-R dye would have quite a drastic effect on IR. Of course it might not, the dye might act as a notch filter and let the lower IR through, rather than as a high pass filter. I suspect though that it acts as the latter rather the former. Matthew - does the camera shipping with the Spec 3.0 have the IR filter removed at the factory? Or is it still in there.

Butterfly clips rule!! (or rather they clip)

No, it doesn't have the filter removed. We've done it in the past, but when it gets down to it we haven't found the IR response to be good enough to justify the step of removing the filter, really.

that said, its easy to pop out-- just unscrew the lens, its on the bottom.

Thanks Matthew, that's good to know. I suppose the IR response might be better if both the lens filter and the dye on the grating weren't present. My second test plot shows more than double the amplitude for the 570 to 630nm yttrium oxide(?) red phosphor peak from the fluorescent lamp. Which might mean that there is a healthy response even lower down.