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Nature of Light Notes

The three key properties of light discussed in the document are interference, polarization, and dispersion. Interference occurs when two beams of light meet and can either enhance or reduce brightness depending on how they interact. Polarization refers to the direction of the oscillating electric field of light - it can be random or well-defined. Dispersion is the separation of white light into its constituent colors by a prism, with different wavelengths bending at different angles.

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272 views1 page

Nature of Light Notes

The three key properties of light discussed in the document are interference, polarization, and dispersion. Interference occurs when two beams of light meet and can either enhance or reduce brightness depending on how they interact. Polarization refers to the direction of the oscillating electric field of light - it can be random or well-defined. Dispersion is the separation of white light into its constituent colors by a prism, with different wavelengths bending at different angles.

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The first of these relations states that the angle of incidence, , is equal to the angle of reflection, .

n, . This is the familiar law of


reflection. Furthermore, the second relation corresponds to the equally familiar law of refraction, otherwise known as Snell's law.
Incidentally, the fact that a plane wave propagates through a uniform dielectric medium with a constant wavevector, and, therefore,
a constant direction of motion, is equivalent to the well-known law of rectilinear propagation, which states that a light ray (i.e., the
normal to a constant phase surface) propagates through a uniform medium in a straight-line.
It follows, from the previous discussion, that the laws of geometric optics (i.e., the law of rectilinear propagation, the law of
reflection, and the law of refraction) are fully consistent with the wave properties of light, despite the fact that they do not seem to
explicitly depend on these properties.

DUAL NATURE OF LIGHT

Wave
interferene - Interference is another property of light. It is a phenomenon that occurs when two beams of light meet. Depending on
both the nature of the two beams and when they meet, they can either merge and enhance one another and give a brighter beam,
or they might interfere in such a way as to make the merged beam less bright. The former is called constructive interference, and
the latter is destructive interference. This is often demonstrated in a Physics classroom with a laser light and penny demonstration.

Polarization - Light is an electromagnetic wave, and the electric field of this wave oscillates perpendicularly to the direction of
propagation. Light is called unpolarized if the direction of this electric field fluctuates randomly in time. Many common light sources
such as sunlight, halogen lighting, LED spotlights, and incandescent bulbs produce unpolarized light. If the direction of the electric
field of light is well defined, it is called polarized light. The most common source of polarized light is a laser.

Polarization - Dispersion is another property of light. This refers to the ability to break white light into its constituent colors. White
light consists of all of the colors we are able to see. If white light enters a prism, what emerges from the other side is a spread out
beam of multi-colored light. Blue light, with longer wavelengths, gets bent more by the different angles of the prism than red light,
and the other colors are in between blue and red on the wave spectrum.

http://www.physicsplanet.com/articles/properties-of-light
https://www.edmundoptics.com/resources/application-notes/optics/introduction-to-polarization/
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/jk1/lectures/node85.html
http://ctaps.yu.edu.jo/physics/Courses/Phys281A/Phys281_Suppl1_Summary_Ch1.pdf

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