Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Wave refraction in the manner of Huygens. In an inhomogeneous medium with a variable index of refraction, different parts of the wavefront propagate at different speeds. Consequently the wavefront bends around in the direction of higher index. [12]: 68 Huygens-Fresnel construction of wave refraction in a medium with variable index of refraction
The new wavefront for the o-ray will be tangent to the spherical wavelets, while the new wavefront for the e-ray will be tangent to the ellipsoidal wavelets. Each plane wavefront propagates straight ahead but with different velocities: V 0 for the o-ray and V e for the e-ray. The direction of the k-vector is always perpendicular to the ...
The plane wavefront is a good model for a surface-section of a very large spherical wavefront; for instance, sunlight strikes the earth with a spherical wavefront that has a radius of about 150 million kilometers (1 AU). For many purposes, such a wavefront can be considered planar over distances of the diameter of Earth.
Refraction of light at the interface between two media of different refractive indices, with n 2 > n 1. Since the phase velocity is lower in the second medium (v 2 < v 1), the angle of refraction θ 2 is less than the angle of incidence θ 1; that is, the ray in the higher-index medium is closer to the normal.
Refraction of light at the interface between two media of different refractive indices, with n 2 > n 1. Since the velocity is lower in the second medium (v 2 < v 1), the angle of refraction θ 2 is less than the angle of incidence θ 1; that is, the ray in the higher-index medium is closer to the normal.
For refraction of a plane wave at parallel incidence on one face of an anisotropic crystalline wedge (pp. 291–2), in order to find the "first ray arrived" at an observation point beyond the other face of the wedge, it suffices to treat the rays outside the crystal as normal to the wavefronts, and within the crystal to consider only the ...
The different angles of refraction for the two polarization components are shown in the figure at the top of this page, with the optic axis along the surface (and perpendicular to the plane of incidence), so that the angle of refraction is different for the p polarization (the "ordinary ray" in this case, having its electric vector ...
Ray tracing of a beam of light passing through a medium with changing refractive index.The ray is advanced by a small amount, and then the direction is re-calculated. Ray tracing works by assuming that the particle or wave can be modeled as a large number of very narrow beams (), and that there exists some distance, possibly very small, over which such a ray is locally straight.