All Questions
Tagged with refraction electromagnetic-radiation
28
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
3
votes
2
answers
1k
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Intrinsic impedance of a medium
I am trying to understand what the intrinsic impedance of a medium means. I understand the mathematical definition of it, but it doesn't speak much about the concept to me.
What does intrinsic ...
- 312
2
votes
0
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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
votes
0
answers
129
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When does refraction begin?
As a wave function (a single quantum of field excitation) enters a refractory medium, does it begin to refract only after the entire wavelength has entered or does the leading edge of the wavelength ...
2
votes
0
answers
316
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WHY do waves diffract - what is the mechanism behind the diffraction?
Having recently studied wave diffraction at an introductory level, I don't feel that I understand why waves diffract like they do.
What is it about the obstacle or the waves interaction with it which ...
- 121
2
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0
answers
185
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Modeling a spray painted polyurethane surface reflection
I'm modeling light interaction/reflection from a fiberglass surface with polyurethane epoxy (that is very reflective) that has been spray painted with a matte black paint. I'm looking for some input -...
- 283
1
vote
0
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108
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The speed of light in medium with different frequency
We know that the speed of light in vaccuum can be expressed as $c=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu_0\epsilon_0}}$ and thus the speed of light in vaccuum is thus $$v=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu\epsilon}}=\frac{c}{\sqrt{\...
- 83
1
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67
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How does Dipole coupling affect macroscopic polarizability and refractive index
I have taken some measurements of refractive index (refractometer (commercial Brix meter), nD20 i.e. 20 degrees C and 589 nm) and density of sucrose/water mixtures and also of ethanol/water mixtures.
...
- 313
1
vote
0
answers
57
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Decoherence of a laser beam via oil emulsion
This is sort of a followup to an earlier question that I posted regarding how to destroy the temporal and/or spatial coherence of a laser beam. It was suggested to me that I could use a rapidly ...
- 366
1
vote
0
answers
104
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Does a single photon propagate with phase velocity or front velocity through a dispersive material?
I know that we explain the slowing down of light in a dispersive medium classically, by inducing small dipoles in the medium (which holds as long as being far away from absorption bands), and the ...
- 1,803
1
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0
answers
46
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Why are Snell's law and Cauchy 's and Sellmeier's equations not valid for all of EM-waves?
Is this true that a x-ray or a soft gamma-ray would bend the most among all EM-waves while passing through two different optical materials? How can happen that so energetic rays must bend their ...
- 1,815
1
vote
1
answer
64
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Frequency of EM waves
When light travels in air, all the component frequencies of light travels with the same velocity $v_{air} = 1/\sqrt {\epsilon_0\mu_0}$ (where $\epsilon_0$ is independent of frequency. Then we say that ...
- 453
1
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0
answers
28
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Modeling curved light in media with "complex" indices of refraction
I've written an algorithm to solve the Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) localization problem, using Bancroft's method (see). Given the coordinates of $n$ nodes in ...
- 799
1
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0
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54
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In anisotropic media, is there a speed of light tensor like there is a refractive index tensor?
Lets say we have an homogeneous anisotropic medium where $\tilde\mu_r=\tilde\epsilon_r$ so we don't have to worry about polarization effecting anything. As such, the refractive index can be simply ...
- 780
1
vote
0
answers
88
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Snells Law derivation from Plane Wave incidence
I am trying to derive snell's law from plane wave incidence by imposing the condition that the phase of the incident, reflected and transmitted wave at the point of incidence must be equal. Here's ...
- 111
1
vote
1
answer
38
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What is the difference between ordinary-spacial cloaking and spacetime cloaking?
I am unsure of what are the differences between space time cloaking and spacial cloaking, as any event can be hidden from a viewer using spatial cloaking for however long the cloaking is activated, ...
- 124