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When reflection occurs from thin layers of material, internal reflection effects can cause the reflectance to vary with surface thickness. Reflectivity is the limit value of reflectance as the sample becomes thick; it is the intrinsic reflectance of the surface, hence irrespective of other parameters such as the reflectance of the rear surface.
Lambertian reflection from polished surfaces is typically accompanied by specular reflection , where the surface luminance is highest when the observer is situated at the perfect reflection direction (i.e. where the direction of the reflected light is a reflection of the direction of the incident light in the surface), and falls off sharply.
Reflection of light is either specular (mirror-like) or diffuse (retaining the energy, but losing the image) depending on the nature of the interface.In specular reflection the phase of the reflected waves depends on the choice of the origin of coordinates, but the relative phase between s and p (TE and TM) polarizations is fixed by the properties of the media and of the interface between them.
The phase shift of the reflected wave on total internal reflection can similarly be obtained from the phase angles of r p and r s (whose magnitudes are unity in this case). These phase shifts are different for s and p waves, which is the well-known principle by which total internal reflection is used to effect polarization transformations .
Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light or other waves or particles from a surface such that a ray incident on the surface is scattered at many angles rather than at just one angle as in the case of specular reflection.
The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), symbol (,), is a function of four real variables that defines how light from a source is reflected off an opaque surface. It is employed in the optics of real-world light, in computer graphics algorithms, and in computer vision algorithms.
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Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, or diffuse reflection spectroscopy, is a subset of absorption spectroscopy. It is sometimes called remission spectroscopy . Remission is the reflection or back-scattering of light by a material, while transmission is the passage of light through a material.