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6 votes
2 answers
587 views

Could a transparent frequency-altering material be possible?

I would imagine a material that is transparent but a electromagnetic wave going out will have a lower frequency than when going in (and maintaining it's direction). You could build glasses to see UV-...
1 vote
1 answer
40 views

Can an optical medium be lossless and dispersive?

Occasionally, I come across the phrase "lossless dispersive linear optical medium". How can such a medium be possible mathematically? I mean the real and imaginary parts of the electric ...
0 votes
0 answers
9 views

How are 3 Principle Sections possible in a crystal even when there is only one optical axis and all must contain it?

While studying polarization in calcite crystals, I came across that there are 3 possible principle sections in the rhombohedral crystal. But the conditions are that each section must be perpendicular ...
0 votes
0 answers
46 views

How can a greater than 1 reflectance coefficient be explained in $\rm SiC$-$\rm SiO_2$ interface?

I ran a simulation using the Transfer Matrix Method to plot the R,T and A curves for a SiC->SiO2 interface. There's a region of incident energies where the |r|^2 I get is higher than 1 and the ...
3 votes
2 answers
285 views

What is the mechanism of transparency of EM?

What happens in transparent materials? Do their molecules oscillate with the same frequency as the EM wave and then reemit in the same direction? Or the light goes through meshes in the bulk?
1 vote
2 answers
2k views

Is there a way to make infrared pass through metals?

I am curious to know a way that will make infrared pass through metals. Metals are good reflectors of infrared,can we manipulate the wave in order to make them pass through metals?.
1 vote
1 answer
57 views

Why are things reflective, absorbent, transparent etc? [duplicate]

What determines whether a material reflects, absorbs or transmits a certain wavelength of light? Just a layman's question.
3 votes
1 answer
467 views

Brewster's angle for Metal?

As metal has a high refraction index, it is possible to have Brewster's Angle for Metal when the light incident from the air? Is it possible to derive from any formula?
5 votes
1 answer
177 views

Does the front of a light wave always propagate at $c$ in media

Consider light moving along one dimension at the classical level. I am interested in the situation where a wave front impacts a material with some generic index of refraction $n(\omega)$, and ...
2 votes
0 answers
62 views

How to figure out TM and TE modes based on dispersion relation?

According to this paper (https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5128679), the dispersion relation of hyperbolic materials is as follows: then it is said, that he first term in brackets in the equation describes a ...
0 votes
1 answer
59 views

What formalism is used to model thin film optical coatings that function across a range of angles of incident light?

Thin film optical coatings [0] are atomically/molecularly thin layers of material applied to a substrate with the intent of affecting the optical properties of the substrate. For example, magnesium ...
5 votes
6 answers
2k views

Why doesn't infrared radiation pass through objects?

It cannot be due to Raman scattering because $1$ in $10^7$ photons are Raman scattered. It cannot be Rayleigh scattering because Rayleigh scattering of infrared radiation is very low due to the ...
1 vote
0 answers
417 views

Does reflection depend on wavelength?

I'm aware of processes like Rayleigh scattering, Compton scattering and pair production. But as these processes treat light as being particles(?) I'm not sure whether they are helpful to understand ...
2 votes
0 answers
89 views

What determines the penetration of electromagnetic waves?

What is it that determines whether or not an electromagnetic wave can penetrate different materials and how far it can go? For example light can penetrate through glass, but not concrete walls, but ...
0 votes
2 answers
196 views

Could we see through objects if our eye could detect other wavelengths of light?

We see objects around us because light reflects off the surface and enters our eye. So if our eyes could see a wider range of the spectrum (maybe lower wavelength as they would scatter less) then ...

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