All Questions
Tagged with electromagnetic-radiation optics
134
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
3
votes
1
answer
124
views
Can you observe Rayleigh scattering of water waves?
I understand roughly that Rayleigh scattering occurs when white light encounters particles smaller than the wavelength of visible light, and short wavelengths are preferentially scattered.
I'm ...
- 151
3
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0
answers
45
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What is a stochastic electromagnetic wave?
In statistical optics we always talking about stochastic electromagnetic wave but I am not able to understand how this wave is different from electromagnetic wave
- 31
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220
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Kirchhoff's law for glass and transparent crystals; how exactly do hot transparent materials produce so much visible thermal radiation?
Together, the current answers to Is the visible light spectrum from "red-hot glass" at least close to Blackbody Radiation? explain that while we can not necessarily call a heated sample of ...
- 6,273
3
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50
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Poynting vector flux in a tube (geometrical optics)
Let's consider the following tube (defined as the solid described by two arbitrary surfaces dA1 and dA2, and by all the rays which connect their boundaries):
I read in a textbook that, because of ...
- 1,319
3
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172
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Higher order multipolar second harmonic generation in centrosymmetric materials
As is pointed in this question, second harmonic generation is forbidden in the bulk of the materials possessing centrosymmetry. In some papers it is said that in the dipolar approximation the SHG ...
- 903
2
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answers
38
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Direction of propagation of extraordinary wave inside a birefringent medium
I am reading Optics by Ajoy Ghatak, in which the author explains the phenomenon of double refraction in a calcite crystal using Huygens' principle. My query is in the analysis of the case of normal ...
- 21
2
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answers
28
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For Rayleigh scattering, what is the phase difference between the incident field and the scattered (or reradiated) field?
I am asking within the context of electromagnetic theory. Much of the discourse I could find in the literature was more focused on the phase differences between the scattered fields of various ...
- 21
2
votes
1
answer
59
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Can the time varying Intensity of an electric field of a wave be measured?
Lets say that we have a detector which we use to measure the intensity. Theoretically, the intensity is a varying function of time (When we calculate the Poynting vector) but often in textbooks they ...
- 21
2
votes
1
answer
68
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Poisson spot amplitude
The equation
$$
U(P) \propto \int_0^{2\pi} \int_0^{\infty} g(\rho,\theta) \exp\left[ \frac{i\pi}{\lambda}\left(\frac{1}{z_0} + \frac{1}{z_1}\right) \rho^2 \right] \rho \, d\rho \, d\theta
$$
or the ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
439
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Laser induced explosion (detonation)
I have a question involving quite the wacky (and silly) hypothetical. It's a part of an ongoing argument I'd like to settle. Of course, I have no background in physics which is why I came here, so I ...
- 21
2
votes
0
answers
102
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Why does refractive index increase with concentration of the medium?
I learnt that lights decrease velocity in a medium during absorbance and emission of its energy in the charged particles in the medium. From the Beer's law, I read that absorbance is directly ...
- 21
2
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answers
31
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"Pointlike" explosions: the transition to non-explosions as initial energy is decreased (or volume increased). How does their behaviour change?
If a large enough amount of energy is dumped in a small enough volume of Earth's lower atmosphere, events follow a standard pattern:
The air within the volume is fully ionized and heated to extremely ...
- 219
2
votes
1
answer
54
views
Devices for the generation of polarized light
In many papers dealing with the generation of polarized states of light in imaging applications, Photo Elastic Modulators (PEM) is one of the most chosen devices to modulate the polarization of the ...
- 61
2
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41
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Conditions for scattering of evanescent waves?
In this monograph internal reflection spectroscopy, the author makes the case that the evanescent wave cannot decouple from the surface and be scattered away from the interface (even in the presence ...
- 171
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44
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Reason for phase change in the electric field oscillations, not the magnetic field oscillations?
Wikipedia states that when an EM wave undergoes reflection, there is a phase change only in the electric field oscillations, not the magnetic field oscillations. It also suggests that the opposite is ...
- 223