Determination of surface tension coefficient of liquids by diffraction of light on capillary waves

This paper describes a simple technique for determining the coefficient of the surface tension of liquids, based on laser light diffraction on capillary waves. Capillary waves of given frequency are created by an exciter needle acting on the surface of liquid and represent a reflective diffraction grating, the constant of which (the wavelength of capillary waves) can be determined based on a known incidence angle of light (grazing angle). We obtain the coefficient of the surface tension of liquids by applying the dispersion relation for capillary waves and analyze the difficulties that arise when setting up and conducting the experiment in detail.