Physics of Light and Color

Introduction of Light: No single answer to the question “What is light?” satisfies the
many contexts in which light is experienced, explored, and exploited. The physicist is
interested in the physical properties of light, the artist in an aesthetic appreciation of the
visual world.
17th century: English scientist Isaac Newton thought light was made of little particles
(he called them corpuscles) emitted by hot objects (such as the sun or fire)
His contemporary, the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, thought light was a kind
of wave vibrating up and down as it moved forward.
Still, neither of them had a concept of what light really was. (Newton had no idea
what his corpuscles were made of; Huygen’s had no concept of what was “waving”.
Incidentally, the question of whether a photon is a particle or wave has never been fully
resolved.)
First steps towards understanding light’s makeup to a benchtop in Copenhagen in
1820, where Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted was giving a lecture on electricity.
A compass happened to be sitting near the battery he was using in his demonstration
and he noticed the compass needle suddenly jerking when he switched the battery on or off.
This meant electricity and magnetism were related – or, as it was more formally described
later, a changing electric field creates a magnetic field.
Then 11 years later, English scientist Michael Faraday discovered the opposite rang
true: that a changing magnetic field also creates an electric field.
It was the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell who collected these ideas about
electricity and magnetism (plus a few others) and pulled them together into one coherent
theory of “electromagnetism”.
But Maxwell’s most celebrated insight was when he combined the work of Ørsted and
Faraday to explain the essence of light.
He realized that a changing electric field could create a changing magnetic field,
which would then create another electric field and so on. The result would be a self-
sustaining electromagnetic field, endlessly repeating, travelling incredibly fast.
How fast? Maxwell was able to calculate this too, at about 300,000,000 metres each
second – pretty close to what had recently been measured for the speed of light.
And so this is what light is: an electric field tied up with a magnetic field, flying
through space.
Light: Simply speaking Light is a type of energy that makes it possible for us to see the
world around us by stimulating our sight.Scientifically, Light is energy formed by
electromagnetic radiation, consisting of elementary particle photon. More specifically, Light
is an electric field tied up with a magnetic field, flying through space.
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Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from radio waves to gamma rays.
Like all other electromagnetic radiation, light travels at a speed of about 299,728 km per
second in a vacuum. Light moves in waves and is produced from a source.
Electromagnetic radiation: Electromagnetic radiation waves, as their names suggest are
fluctuations of electric and magnetic fields, which can transport energy from one location to
another. Light is electromagnetic radiation.
Electromagnetic spectrum: Electromagnetic (EM) radiation spans an enormous range of
wavelengths and frequencies. This range is known as the electromagnetic spectrum.
Electromagnetic spectrum is the entire distribution of electromagnetic radiation according
to frequency or wavelength.
The EM spectrum is generally divided into seven regions, in order of decreasing
wavelength and increasing energy and frequency. The common designations are: radio
waves, microwaves, infrared (IR), visible light, ultraviolet (UV), X-rays and gamma rays.

Category Range of Wavelengths (nm) Range of Frequencies (Hz)

gamma rays <1 >3×1017

X-rays 1–10 3×1016–3×1017

ultraviolet light 10–400 7,5×1014–3×1016

visible light 400–700 4,3×1014–7,5×1014

infrared 700–105 3×1012–4,3×1014

microwave 105–108 3×109–3×1012

radio waves >108 <3×109 2e

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Typically, lower-energy radiation, such as radio waves, is expressed as frequency;
microwaves, infrared, visible and UV light are usually expressed as wavelength; and higher-
energy radiation, such as X-rays and gamma rays, is expressed in terms of energy per
photon.

Visible light: Visual Light is the electromagnetic radiation which is visible to the human eye.
It consists of different wavelengths, which are perceived as different colors. Very long
wavelengths are perceived as red, and very short ones as violet.

Visible light is found in the middle of the EM spectrum, between IR and UV. It has
wavelengths of about 740 nm to 380 nm. More generally, visible light is defined as the
wavelengths that are visible to most human eyes.

Color Violet Indigo Blue Green Yellow Orange Red

Range(nm) 380- 450 420- 450 450- 495 495- 570 570- 590 590- 620 620- 750

Uses of electromagnetic Wave:

Category Uses
Used to kill the bacteria in marshmallows and to sterilise medical
Gamma rays
equipment
X-rays Used to image bone structures
Ultraviolet Bees can see into the ultraviolet because flowers stand out more clearly at
light this frequency
Visible light Used by humans to observe the world
Infrared Night vision, heat sensors, laser metal cutting
Microwave Microwave ovens, radar
Radio waves Radio, television broadcasts

Nature of Light: To meet the answer “What is light?” many contexts in which light is
experienced, explored, and exploited. About the nature of light there are two/three theories
have been recognized.

1. Particle Theory: First theory is the particle theory, According to particle theory, light
is a particle with mass, traveling at very high speeds. Light particle can bounce off
shiny materials producing reflected beams.

Main drawback of this theory was that many phenomena of light (ie. Refraction) could not be
explained by this particle theory.

2. Quantum Theory / Photon theory: The quantum theory is related to light

propagation and generation. According to this theory, light is being made up of packets
of energy called photons. The energy contained in each photon is related to the
frequency of light by equation.

Ep = h x f
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 3. Dual Nature of Light Theory: A dual nature of light theory was proposed up to now
it is considered to be true. This theory suggests that light travels in small packets of
energy called photons which have momentum. Like particle of mass. Thus light is
wave energy traveling with some of the characteristics of a moving particle.

How People See Visible Light: The human eye and the brain work together to perceive
visible light. Either there needs to be a light source (such as sunlight) or there needs to be
reflected light (the light reflected from snow, ice and clouds) on an object. Light from any
source enters the human eye and is received by eye cells called cones. Special nerves that
respond to the visible light spectrum range send signals to the brain, which interprets them as
light.

No two people will see light exactly the same way, due to small differences in the retinas of
their eyes. The ability to see light at different wavelengths also changes with age. In
childhood, people usually can see at shorter wavelengths than when they are older.

Luminous versus Illuminated Objects: The objects that we see can be placed into one of
two categories:

1. Luminous objects and

2. Illuminated objects.

Luminous objects are objects that generate their own light. Illuminated objects are objects
that are capable of reflecting light to our eyes. The sun is an example of a luminous object,
while the moon is an illuminated object.

To make this concept clear let see an example:

During the day, we can easily see any object because, the sun generates sufficient
light to that illuminate objects, and this object reflects this light to our eyes. But what happens
at night? The object is no longer visible to our eyes! But if we place porch light of that same
object at night it will be visible. This is because Illuminated objects have only the ability to
reflect light to our eyes rather than making their own light sources. So, without the light from
the luminous objects, these illuminated objects would not be seen. Without light, there would
be no sight.
Interaction of light with objects: Light reaches objects from many different sources e.g.
from large and powerful sources of illumination such as the sun. In general, when light
reaches an object it can do one or a combination of:
1. Absorption
2. Reflection
3. Scattering
4. Refraction
These phenomenons are observed because of the relative frequencies of object’s
molecules and frequencies of light wave. If the natural frequency of light beam is equal to
the frequency of the object’s molecule than the light will absorbed by the object. And in case
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of differences in frequency the light will be reflected.

 1. Absorption: When light falls on the surface of the object, the light goes into the object
rather than leaving the surface of the object - and then some of that light entering the
eye - the object is not "seen" as very bright. However, the object might still be obvious
to a viewer.
2. Reflection: When light falls on the surface of the object, some light beam is bounced off
and backed to the previous medium resulting reflected light reaches to our eyes.
Reflected light leaves the surface at one particular angle relative to the angle from which
it reached that surface. That is, Angle of incidence = Angle of reflection.

3. Scatter: On reaching the surface of an object, light leaves that surface not in any one
particular direction, but in many directions spread over a wide range of angles. This
applies particularly to non-highly polished surfaces, such as paper, or walls painted matt
white.
4. Refraction: This is another case of light entering and passing through the object instead
of leaving the surface of the object.

Refraction only applies to objects that light can pass through, such as blocks of glass or
plastic, windows, water, and spectacles.

In simple terms, the same object, e.g. a cube, is more like to:
Absorb light - if it has an opaque matt (non-shiny) black surface
Scatter light - if it has an opaque matt (non-shiny) white surface
Reflect light - if it has a shiny finish e.g. mirror surface
Refract light - if it is transparent to the wavelength of light that reaches its surface (e.g. if it
consists of colourless glass and is illuminated by visible light e.g. a green laser beam) and the
light reaches the surface of the object within a certain range of angles.
Where Does Color Come From?

The color of the objects that we see is largely due to the way those objects interact
with light and ultimately reflect or transmit it to our eyes. The color of an object is not
actually within the object itself. Rather, the color is in the light that is ultimately reflected or
transmitted to our eyes.

We know that the visible light spectrum consists of a range of frequencies

(ROYGBIV), each of which corresponds to a specific color. When visible light strikes an
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object and some frequencies becomes absorbed, that frequencies of light will never make it
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color to our eyes. The rest frequency which is reflected (transmitted to eye) by object, strikes
in our eyes and we see it in that specific color. So the color is not in the object itself, but is
the specific frequency of that light that strikes the object and ultimately reaches our eye. As
for example, if an object absorbs all of the frequencies of visible light except for the
frequency associated with green light, then the object will appear green in the presence
of ROYGBIV.

White light (color): White light is defined as the complete mixture of all of the
wavelengths of the visible spectrum. 'White Light' or 'the color white' is the humans perceive
and refer to our experience of receiving an approximately equal quantity of all the
wavelengths (not any single or some of it) in the visible spectrum from an area or object.
There are many different 'shades of white' because of the combination of wavelengths
received by our eyes usually contains a bit more of some wavelengths than of others. Hence
some 'whites' can appear to be slightly yellow, slightly blue, slightly pink, and so on.
A band of colors (as seen in a rainbow) produced by separation of the components of
white light by their different degrees of refraction according to wavelength, is called the
spectrum of white light. The colors which appear in the spectrum of white light are violet,
indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red (VIBGYOR).
The full spectrum that forms white light is listed in this table:
Color Violet Indigo Blue Green Yellow Orange Red
Range(nm) 380- 450 420- 450 450- 495 495- 570 570- 590 590- 620 620- 750

Black light (color): While white is the way we perceive an approximately

equal presence of all colors but black is the absence of light / color such that all colors /
wavelengths are (equally) lacking.
Law of Refraction: The Law of Refraction is also known as Snell's Law,
as Descartes' Law, and (less usually) as The Snell–Descartes Law.
The change in direction of a wave (light) that is known as refraction is due to the change in
speed at which that wave (light) travels through one medium compared with another medium.
An equation is a simple way to summarize the relationship between the angles and
the speeds at which the wave (light) travels through the different media is given bellow:
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In the following equation:
sin 𝑖 𝑣1 𝑛2
= =
sin 𝑟 𝑣2 𝑛1

i- represents the angle of refraction measured in degrees (o)

r- represents the angle of refraction measured in degrees (o)
v1- represents the speed of the wave in Material-1
v2- represents the speed of the wave in Material-2
n1- represents the refractive index of Material (1)
n2- represents the refractive index of Material (2).

Refractive Index: The refractive index of a material is a property of that material that
is related to the extent to which a specific type of electromagnetic energy (e.g. a wavelength
of light) travels through that material more slowly than that same type of electromagnetic
energy (e.g. that wavelength of light) would travel through a vacuum.

Law of absorption: if the paint layer contains colored pigment particles (0.1-1μm)
then the light travelling through the medium will be partly absorbed and partly scattered.
Some of the particles are so small (< 0.2 μm) that they can considered to be effectively in
solution, and their light absorption properties can be treated in the same way as those of dye
solution which absorb but do not scatter light.

The transmission of light of a single wavelength through dye solution or dispersion of very
small particles is governed by two laws:

1. Lambert’s or Bouguer’s Law (1760): Which states that, Layer of equal thickness of
the same substance transmit the same fraction of the incident monochromatic
radiation, whatever its intensity.
2. Beer’s law (1832): Which states that, The absorption of light is proportional to the
number of absorbing entities (molecules) in its path.
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 Mathematically Lambert’s law can be expressed in differential form
-𝑑𝐼 =kI
𝑑𝑙
which on integrating suggests that the intensity decreases exponentially with thickness or
path length.
I = Io exp (-kl)
In practice, we use the logarithm form,
ln (I/Io) = - kl
2.303log (I/Io) = - kl
By defining the transmittance T= I/Io and inverting the quantity inside the logarithm
expression to remove negative sign, we get.
Log (1/T) = kl
where k is an absorption coefficient.
A plot of Beer’s law behavior at fixed path length would show a similar linear dependence of
absorbance A with concentracion. In fact the combined Beer-Lambert law is often written as :
A = log (1/T) = ɛ c l
Where, constant ɛ is absorptivity and c is concentration.
The combined Beer-Lambert law is alternatively written as:
I = Io × 10-A or,
I = Io × 10- ɛcl

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Combined absorption and scattering (Kubelka–Munk analysis): Most opaque coloured
objects illuminated by white light produce diffusely reflected coloured radiation by the
combined processes of light absorption and light scattering. Consider the simple case of a
light beam passing vertically through a very thin pigmented layer of thickness dx in a paint
film (Figure 1.28). We consider separately the downward (incident) and upward (reflected)
components of the incident light beam, assuming that the absorption coefficient is
represented by K and the scattering coefficient by S.

Solution of these differential equations depends on the boundary conditions applied, but in
the absence of scattering (S= 0) leads to the Lambert–Bouguer law for the downward flux.
For an isotropically absorbing and scattering layer of infinite thickness (or at least so thick
that the background layer reflection is negligible), it leads to the widely used Kubelka–Munk

expression (Eqn 1.22):

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Where, R∞= J0/I0 is the reflection factor at the surface for a sample of infinite thickness.
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