Questions tagged [optical-materials]
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Material that lets light through only when slightly deformed/vibrating?
I'm curious if there is a material that is porous to light, but only when it is slightly deformed / vibrating. Do such materials exist? In particular I want to prevent a (cheap) laser's light from ...
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Variations in Refractive Index of Materials
It's quite a common fact that different types of glass have different refractive indices. Most sites I've found attribute these differences to variations in the 'density' of the glass, which is not ...
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Deriving Wavelength from Relative Intensity with Broad Spectrum Light Sensor [closed]
I have this broad spectrum light sensor and it gives me readings in relative intensity, but says that it's able to measure the wavelength. The documentation is rather unhelpful, so I was wondering how ...
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Does crystalline silicon have a higher (~3.0 eV) band gap than amorphous Si (~1.75 eV)? Or lower (~1.12 eV)? [closed]
Some sites claim that crystalline silicon has a band gap of approximately $1$ to $1.2$ or so electron volts, and others say it is about $3$ to $3.4$ eV....
Amorphous silicon is usually described as ...
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Can plasmon nanoparticles be displaced by EM field’s?
As at specific frequencies of light, a plasmonic nanoparticle’s electron cloud will predominately shift to one part of the material, will this cause the material to shift in that direction?
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Experimental detection of Anderson localization of light in 3D vs 2D
I have a question about the experimental realization of Anderson localization of light. I am a theorist, and have not worked much in optics, so please bear with me.
Anderson localization of light in ...
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Hi everyone, could anyone help me understand how two cylindrical lens can be used to form a laser sheet?
If you look at the below link under 'Laser Sheet',
https://www.edmundoptics.com/campaigns/cylinder-lens/
the equation is much easier for a single line generator. I am stuck at the point where I use a ...
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How do anti-reflection coatings in solar cells make light stay inside a solar cell?
We know that silicon is too shiny to absorb incoming light that's why anti-reflection coating is needed to make the incoming light stay inside the cell.
However, the problem is, even though the cell ...
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Can someone help me in understanding what actually plasmons are?
This question might have been asked several times but I am confused on this topic. What actually are the plasmons? Do they only exist in the case of metals or they can be found even in semiconductors? ...
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Birefringence in uniaxial materials
In linear optics, when treating anisotropic uniaxial materials we get the frensel equation
this equation gives us two solution for n. My problem is that according to Snell's law, if I have two ...
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Obtaining both relative permittivity and permeability from refractive index
The complex refractive index $\tilde{n}$ is related to the relative electric permittivity and the magnetic permeability with the relation
\begin{equation}
\tilde{n} = n + \mathrm{i} k= \sqrt{\...
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How can the speed of light in matter be measured?
Experiments such as Focault's measure speed of light in matter. Focault's experimental set-up is based on the idea that it takes more time for light to travel through matter, which will result in the ...
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Can paint on a wall considered to be a thin film?
In know that general thin films are as thin as few microns to nanometres and have technical and optical uses. But can a dry paint on wall be considered the simplest example of thin films? I mean its a ...
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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 ...
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Nonlinear Optics: SHG and OPO
I am new to nonlinear optics, and recently I started studying about the second harmonic generation (SHG) and the optical parametric oscillation (OPO) where these two nonlinear interactions are ...
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