DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL

KALYANPUR, KANPUR

Project Report
ON

ToTal inTernal
reflecTion

SESSION: 2022-23

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

MEENAKSHI GUPTA ANSHITA TIWARI

{PHYSICS FACULTY} XII-S3

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am thankful to our Principal Mrs. Archana

Nigam for providing me necessary inputs and
supports for the completion of the project. I
would like to extend my gratitude to my
Physics teacher Meenakshi Gupta for her
guidance and valuable suggestions. It is a
manner of pride and pleasure to express my
indebtedness to the faculty of science for their
keen interest, continuous and constructive
criticism at every stage of project. I am also
thankful to CBSE for including the project as a
part of Physics curriculum.

SIGNATURE
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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Anshita Tiwari of class XII-S3

of Delhi Public School, Kalyanpur, has completed her
project report on TOTAL INTERNAL
REFLECTION as a part of her Physics syllabus of
CBSE under my supervision. She has taken proper
care and has shown utmost sincerity in completion of
this project.
I certify that this project is up to my expectation
and as per the guidelines issued by CBSE.

Meenakshi Gupta
External Examiner (Physics Faculty)

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INDEX :

Aim 3
Certificate 4
Acknowledgement 5
Apparatus 6
Introduction 7-8
Theory 9-17
Conclusion 18
Bibliography 19

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AIM:

To determine conditions of total internal

reflection using a light source and a
beaker filled with a liquid of refractive
index n.

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APPARATUS:

1. A Beaker
2. A light source
3. Liquid with refractive index
n(say water)

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TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION

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INTRODUCTION:

Total Internal Reflection is a scenario where a travelling

wave of light strikes a boundary of a medium but at an
angle that is larger than critical angle. So, the concept
behind is that if the refractive index on the other side of
the boundary of the medium is lower, and the light wave
strikes at greater angle, so the wave is reflected
internally entirely. Total internal reflection is a basic
concept used in variety of applications for fast travelling
of light rays. Total Internal Reflection can also be
extended onto various concepts that are arose out of it
like frustrated total internal reflection or evanescent
waves which are the special cases of this phenomena.

The following discussion will ponder over the reasons

for total internal reflection, the scenarios where it occurs,
some special cases of total internal reflection and finally
some great applications of total internal reflection in our
day to day lives. The following figure gives a day to day
observation of total internal reflection in dark when a
laser beam reflects internally and traverses across the
glass tube.

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THEORY:
Total internal reflection is defined as:
The phenomenon which occurs when the light rays
travel from a more optically denser medium to a less
optically denser medium.

Consider the following situation, A ray of light passes

from a medium of water to that of air. Light ray will be
refracted at the junction separating the two media. Since
it passes from a medium of a higher refractive index to
that having a lower refractive index, the refracted light
ray bends away from the normal. At a specific angle of
incidence, the incident ray of light is refracted in such a
way that it passes along the surface of the water or
grazes the surface of water. This particular angle of
incidence is called the critical angle*. Here the angle of
refraction is 90 degrees. When the angle of incidence is
greater than the critical angle, the incident ray is
reflected back to the medium. We call this phenomenon
total internal reflection.
Critical Angle is a specific angle where if the light travels
from denser to rarer medium at this angle it goes in a
straight line across the boundary.
To understand better this phenomenon, we use ray
diagram. In the figure shown, a ray of light AO is
travelling from denser to rarer medium with small
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incidence angle i.e. when the ray reaches into rarer
medium it bends away from normal ON and refracts with
an angle r in the rarer medium and goes in direction OC.

When ray of light bends away from the normal in rarer

region, the angle of reflection in rarer medium is
greater than the angle of incidence i in denser medium.

By increasing the angle of incidence in denser medium,

the angle of refraction r in denser region increases
gradually. For a certain angle of incidence angle i = θc,
the angle of refraction in rarer medium becomes 90° and
thus known as critical angle.
We should know the critical angle of glass, which is 42°,
which means when we will incident a ray at an angle of
42°, and then only we will get angle of refraction in air
as 90°. The critical angle for a medium is thus defined as
the angle of incidence in medium for which refraction
angle in air is 90°. The critical angle
is donated by letter θc.

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Conditions for Total Internal Reflection
For an angle of incidence greater than critical angle c,
there will be no refraction of light from denser to rarer
medium which is usually the case when light travels so
on angles lesser than the critical angle. That means all
light comes back, that means it is reflected back in the
denser medium and is shown in diagram 3 of Figure 2
with ray OC. Here, no refraction is present at all. All the
light is reflected back into the denser medium. This is
the underlying concept of total internal reflection where
instead of refraction an internal reflection takes place.

Angle of incidence when travelling from denser medium

is more than the critical angle of the medium, then no
refraction occurs in the rarer medium, all the light gets
reflected back into the denser medium. We define it as
total internal reflection. The conditions that are
necessary and mandatory for the phenomena of total
internal reflection are:
Light should pass from denser to rarer medium (in
the terms of refractive index of a material)
Angle of incidence formed in denser medium should be
more than critical angle of the medium (if less, then
the light will be refracted).
Snell’s law does not apply here as there is no
refraction and thus follow law of reflection.

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Total internal reflection will happen when the light will
travel from water towards air but the scenario when it
travels from air towards water will not occur. This is one
of the examples and it will be same in case of glass to air,
glass or glass to water and any two media of different
refractive indices.
The case to ponder is that how big the angle of incidence
be? For example, the critical angle for water - air
interface is 48.6 so any angle of incidence which is even
slightly greater than this critical angle will result in total
internal reflection. The comparison only lies in
exceeding the critical angle and not in the amount by
which it is exceeded. On every angle that is greater than
the critical angle, total internal reflection will definitely
occur regardless of the shape of the media itself. Critical
angle depends upon the media selected for the travelling
of light rays.

So, Ɵi (angle of incidence) is calculated by keeping Ɵt as

90 degrees. Here, n2 and n1 both are the refractive
indices of the media.
Since, critical angle is media dependent, so for every pair
of media there are different critical angles and hence
different angle of incidence greater than corresponding
critical angles will result in total internal reflection
phenomena.

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Applications of Total Internal Reflection

Diamond
Total
Internal
Reflection
Mirage

Optical
Fibre


Total Internal Reflection is primarily used in the field of
fibre optics. The structure of the optical fibre
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 makes the total internal reflection possible. There is a
difference in refractive index of core and cladding
which makes it possible for the ray of the light to
reflect internally. By using this technique, the light
remains trapped into the optic fibre cable and this
phenomenon helps in fast transfer of light down the
entire length. Optic fibres are mainly used in the field
of telecommunications wherein there is a requirement
of making it to travel through long distances without
getting lost or distorted. Hence, in this light will
always be reflecting from the layer of cladding having
lower refractive index regardless of the angle that the
fibre bends into i.e. the shape of the fibre cable which
may even take the shape of a circle.

Total Internal Reflection in Fibre Optics

 
Another application of total internal reflection is in
medical science where this concept is applied
to endoscopic tests where there is a need for the
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 light to reflect internally. Prisms used in binoculars
uses this concept to show erect images. Optical
fingerprinting is another application used to record the
image of the fingerprint. LED light panels are also
based on the principle of total internal reflection.


Diamonds partly get their brilliance and sparkle
from the concept of this total internal reflection. This
is because of the high refractive index of the diamond
which is 2.3. so, the diamond achieves its shine when
the light ray strikes many internal surfaces of diamond
(due to its cut) and then at one particular incident
when the angle is less that critical angle of 25 degrees,
it escapes from the medium and emerges into the air.
This is the cause when the coloursof the light gets
separated and are shown brilliantly.

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
Mirage is an optical illusion that is observed mainly
in deserts or roads on a day with high temperatures. The air
that is near to the ground is hotter than the air above so it is
rarer. So when light rays travel from the upper air to the
lower region, total internal reflection occurs and the water
layer appears to be at shorter distances.


Prisms can also  be modified in order to observe total
internal reflection.

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Some other major applications of total internal reflection
include controller of the automatic windshield wipers in
the case of rain sensors, used in spatial light filtering,
used in prisms that are used in binoculars in order to
show the images erect. These are very useful in the
recent technology wherein multi-touch screens are used
which use the concept of frustrated total internal
reflection to sense different targets at the same time. A
fluorescence microscope that uses this principle based on
evanescent waves excite the material fluorophores to
closely monitor and observe biological samples.

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Conclusion:
Total Internal Reflection is a phenomenon which is
involved in various practices of our lives unknowingly
and is cause of various applications in our everyday lives.
It simple occurs because of the difference in the refractive
indices of two mediums which are bundled together and
hence, light traps in between them due to some specific
angle of incidents (greater than critical angle).
Therefore, it is really important to have a deep idea
about total internal reflection in order to understand the
underlying principles of various things such optical
fibres, endoscopy and variety of routine things too. Total
internal reflection hence forms basis of various other
phenomena that help in medical science,
telecommunication etc.
Formula of Total Internal Reflection

Total internal reflection n1.sin i= n2.sin r

Critical angle, θc n1.Sinθc= n2

r is the angle of refraction

i is the angle of incidence
n1 & n2 are the refractive indices of media 1 &
2 θc is the critical angle
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Bibliography

Modern’s abc of Physics

Pradeep’s Fundamental Physics
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_
reflection
SMU Physics, "Internal Reflection"

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THANK YOU