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Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path, a phenomenon which can be deduced by Maxwell's equations, but can be more easily explained by the particle nature of light: photons strike and transfer their momentum. Light pressure is equal to the power of the light beam divided by c, the speed of light.
These areas of optical science typically relate to the electromagnetic or quantum properties of light but do include other topics. A major subfield of modern optics, quantum optics, deals with specifically quantum mechanical properties of light. Quantum optics is not just theoretical; some modern devices, such as lasers, have principles of ...
The frequency of light used in the definition corresponds to a wavelength in a vacuum of 555 nm, which is near the peak of the eye's response to light. If the 1 candela source emitted uniformly in all directions, the total radiant flux would be about 18.40 mW , since there are 4 π steradians in a sphere.
Luminous efficacy of radiation measures the fraction of electromagnetic power which is useful for lighting. It is obtained by dividing the luminous flux by the radiant flux. [4] Light wavelengths outside the visible spectrum reduce luminous efficacy, because they contribute to the radiant flux, while the luminous flux of such light is zero ...
The source of Einstein's proposal that light was composed of particles (or could act as particles in some circumstances) was an experimental anomaly not explained by the wave theory: the photoelectric effect, in which light striking a metal surface ejected electrons from the surface, causing an electric current to flow across an applied voltage.
An example of light exhibiting sub-Poissonian statistics is squeezed light. Recently researchers have shown that sub-Poissonian light can be induced in a quantum dot exhibiting resonance fluorescence. [5] A technique used to measure the sub-Poissonian structure of light is a homodyne intensity correlation scheme. [6]
In the physical sciences, the term spectrum was introduced first into optics by Isaac Newton in the 17th century, referring to the range of colors observed when white light was dispersed through a prism. [1] [2] Soon the term referred to a plot of light intensity or power as a function of frequency or wavelength, also known as a spectral ...
This is sometimes called the quantity of light. [1] Luminous energy is not the same as radiant energy , the corresponding objective physical quantity . This is because the human eye can only see light in the visible spectrum and has different sensitivities to light of different wavelengths within the spectrum.