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Photograph of a triangular prism, dispersing light Lamps as seen through a prism. In optics, a dispersive prism is an optical prism that is used to disperse light, that is, to separate light into its spectral components (the colors of the rainbow). Different wavelengths (colors) of light will be deflected by the prism at different angles. [1]
A familiar dispersive prism. An optical prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that are designed to refract light. At least one surface must be angled — elements with two parallel surfaces are not prisms. The most familiar type of optical prism is the triangular prism, which
Truncated right triangular prism. A truncated triangular prism is a triangular prism constructed by truncating its part at an oblique angle. As a result, the two bases are not parallel and every height has a different edge length. If the edges connecting bases are perpendicular to one of its bases, the prism is called a truncated right ...
In operation, light enters the large rectangular face of the prism, undergoes total internal reflection twice from the sloped faces, and exits again through the large rectangular face. When the light enters and therefore exits the glass at normal incidence, the prism is not dispersive. An image travelling through a Porro prism is rotated by 180 ...
Usually the grating or the prism is used in a reflective mode. A reflective prism is made by making a right triangle prism (typically, half of an equilateral prism) with one side mirrored. The light enters through the hypotenuse face and is reflected back through it, being refracted twice at the same surface.
A pentaprism is a five-sided reflecting prism used to deviate a beam of light by a constant 90°, even if the entry beam is not at 90° to the prism. The beam reflects inside the prism twice , [ 1 ] allowing the transmission of an image through a right angle without inverting it (that is, without changing the image's handedness ) as an ordinary ...
For example, the propagation of light through a prism results in the light ray being deflected depending on the shape and orientation of the prism. Additionally, since different frequencies of light have slightly different indexes of refraction in most materials, refraction can be used to produce dispersion spectra that appear as rainbows.
Conceptual animation of light dispersion through a prism. High frequency (blue) light is deflected the most, and low frequency (red) the least. Refractive processes take place in the physical optics limit, where the wavelength of light is similar to other distances, as a kind of scattering.