6.

3 Light as a wave
Medium of propagation of light
 Light is, an electromagnetic wave that carries energy.
 The light that humans can see is called a ’visible light’.
 As light is an EM wave, it can travel in a vacuum as well as through
materials such as air, water, and glass.
Speed of light
 An EM wave, including light, moves at a constant speed (in a vacuum), which is known
as the speed of light.
 The speed of light has the symbol c and is equal to 2.99792458×108 m/s ≈ 3.00×108 m/s.
 The speed of light can be calculated as c = λ×f
 Where λ is wavelength and f is frequency of the electromagnetic waves.
 In reality, nothing travels faster than the speed of light
 Light emitted from the Sun travels 150 million km to Earth in only about eight and a
half minutes.
 Even though light travels incredibly fast, stars other than the Sun are so far away that it
takes years for the light they emit to reach Earth
 Light travels fastest in empty space, and slowest in solids.
 This because, as light travel through matter, it interacts with the atoms and molecules of
the material
 In glass, for example, light travels about 197,000 km/s.
Examples
1. What is the frequency of an X-ray with a wavelength of 1x10-10 m?
2. Calculate the wavelength of an EM wave with a frequency of 1014 Hz.
Propagation of light
A source of light such as a light bulb gives off light rays that travel away from the
light source in all directions.
An arrow headed straight line represents the direction of propagation of light and
is called a ray.
A collection of rays is called a beam.
Light waves travel in a straight line called rectilinear propagation.
A ray diagram is a drawing that shows the path of light rays.
You can only see an object when light from the object enters your eyes.
The object must be a source of light (for example, a light bulb) or else it must
reflect light from a source (for example, the moon) and the reflected light enters
our eyes
 6.4 Laws of reflection & refraction
Reflection of light
 When a ray of light approaches a smooth polished surface and the light ray bounces
back, it is called the reflection of light.
Terms related to reflection of light
o Incident ray: the incoming light ray to a surface of the reflector.
o Reflected ray: light ray moving away from the surface.
o Normal line: an imaginary line perpendicular to the surface.
o Incident angle (θi):an angle measured between the incident ray and the
normal line.
o Angle of reflection ( θr):an angle measured between the reflected ray and the
normal line.

The laws of reflection

1. The angle of reflection is equal to the angle incidence.
Incidence angel = reflected angle
ϴi = ϴr
Remember that the angles are always measured from the normal line.
2. The incident ray, the normal to the mirror at the point of incidence and the reflected
ray all lie in the same plane.
The word “plane” means flat surface, like a sheet of paper.
 Types of reflection
Question: a sheet of white paper is a good reflector of light. Why you cannot see your image
in a sheet of paper?
A. Specular (regular) Reflection: reflection of light from a smooth shiny surface
Example: reflection on wet smooth road, reflection on mirror.
B. Diffuse Reflection: occurs when light reflects off a rough surface in many
different directions.
The microscopic irregularities of the surface causes light rays to scatter.
Examples: light reflecting off a piece of white paper

N.B: these laws are applicable to all types of reflections, i.e., specular and difuse reflection.

Question: The law of reflection is true for any surface. Does this mean that when parallel rays
approach a surface, the reflected rays will also be parallel?

Refraction of light
Refraction:
Question: why light bends when it passes from one medium to another medium?
 is the change in direction (bending) of light beam as it crosses the boundary between one
transparent medium and another.
 It occurs when light’s velocity changes.
 Is basic principle behind the working of cameras and telescopes.
 The speed of light in different optical medium such as glass, water, ice, diamonds and
quartz is different.
 The speed of light in water, is less than the speed of light in air; the speed of light in glass
is less than the speed of light in water.
Which way does light gets bent?
When light moves from a material in which its speed is higher to a material in
which its speed is lower, such as from air to glass, the ray is bent toward the
normal.
On the other hand, if the ray moves from a material in which its speed is lower to
one in which its speed is higher, the ray is bent away from the normal.
 If the incident ray of light is parallel to the normal, then no refraction (bending)
occurs in either case.

Laws of refraction
1. The incident ray, the refracted ray, and the normal to the interface two transparent media
at the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
2. The ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction is
constant.
 This law is also known as Snell’s law of refraction.
 If θ is the angle of incidence and θ 2 is the angle of refraction, then:
= constant------------------ Snell’s law
 This constant value is called the refractive index of the second medium with respect
to the first (n21 ).
i.e = n21
Refractive Index
 is a measure of how difficult it is for light to than get through a material.
 It tells us how much a material can bend light.
 Consider a ray of light traveling from medium 1 into medium 2
 Let v1 be the speed of light in medium 1, and v2 be the speed of light in
 medium 2.
 The refractive index of medium 2 with respect to medium 1 is given by
n21 = =
 If medium 1 is vacuum or air, then the refractive index of medium 2 is considered with
respect to vacuum.
 This is called the absolute refractive index (or simply the refractive index ) of the
medium (n).
 Absolute refractive index is the ration of speed of light in vacuum to the speed of light in
that medium.
n= =
if a light ray is incident on the surface between these materials with an angle of
incidence θ 1 , the refracted ray passes through the second medium with an angle of
refraction θ 2 , Snell’s law can be written as:
n1 si n θ1 = n2 si n θ2
Where:
n1 = refractive index of material 1
n2 = refractive index of material 2,
θ1 = angle of incidence and
θ2 = angle of refraction.
Examples
1. Light travels from water (n₁ = 1.33) into glass (n₂ = 1.50) at an angle of incidence of 30°.
What is the sine of the angle of refraction?
2. A light ray is incident from air onto a liquid surface at an angle of 60°. The angle of
refraction is measured to be 36°. What is the refractive index of the liquid?
3. A ray of light is incident from air onto a glass slab (n = 1.5) at an angle of 60°. What is
the angle of refraction inside the glass?
4. A prism has a refractive index of 1.5. A ray of light enters the prism at an angle of
incidence of 45°. What is the angle of refraction at the first surface?

Total internal reflection

 Total internal reflection (TIR) is a phenomenon that occurs when a ray of
light traveling from a denser medium to a rarer medium strikes the interface at an
angle greater than the critical angle.
 For total internal reflection to take place, the following two conditions
must be satisfied.
 Light must travel from an optically denser medium (i.e., a medium having a high
refractive index) to an optically less denser medium (i.e., a medium having a lower
refractive index).
 The angle of incidence in the denser medium must be greater than the critical angle.
 To recap, Snell’s Law states: n1 sin θ1 = n2 sin θ2
 For total internal reflection, you know that the angle of incidence is the critical angle (i.e., θ 1 = θc
) and the angle of refraction is 900 . You also know that the angle of refraction at since the light
merges parallel to the interface so that the angle of refraction is 90 0.
 You can then write Snell’s law as
n1 sin θc = n2 sin 90
sin θc = sin900 =

θc =sin-1 ( )

EXAMPLES
1. Light is traveling from water (refractive index n1 =1.33) to air (refractive index n2 =1.00).
What is the critical angle?
2. A light ray is incident from air (n=1.00) onto a rectangular block of glass (n=1.50) at an
angle of incidence of 300 . The light ray then travels through the glass and strikes the
glass-air interface on the opposite side. What is the angle of incidence at this second
interface, and will total internal reflection occur?
Total Internal Reflection and its use in optical fibres
Fibre optics
 Is one of the most common applications of total internal reflection.
 Optical fibres are usually thinner than a human hair.
 When light is incident on one end of the fibre at a small angle, it undergoes multi-
ple
total internal reflections along the fibre.
 The light finally emerges with undiminished intensity at the other end.
Application of Fiber optis
1. Endoscope:
 Is a device used by doctors to see inside the body
 It consists of two bundles of plastic fibres which can be passed down the throat,
for example to view stomach.
 One bundle takes the light down to illuminate the area, while the other takes the
reflected light back to construct the image.
2. Telecommunication
 Telecommunication companies use fibre optics, because information can be
transported over long distances with minimal loss of data.
 The minimized loss of data gives optical fibres’ an advantage over conventional
cables.
 Data is transmitted from one end of the fibre to another in the form of LASER
pulses
3. A fibre can be used to monitor the temperature inside a jet engine.
 The optical cable carries the radiation from the hot surfaces inside to a pyrometer
mounted outside the engine.
4. The fibre optics can also be used to produce decorative lighting.
The Dispersion of Light: Prisms and Rainbows
 Dispersion of light is the process of splitting of white light into its constituent colors
 Is the spreading of white light into its full spectrum of wave length.
 This separation happens because different wavelengths (and thus different colours)
of light travels at slightly different speeds with medium, causing them to bend at dif-
ferent angles.
 Snell’s law of refraction indicates that light of different wavelengths is bent at differ-
ent angles when incident on a refracting material.
 Different colors of white light have different speeds in the refracting medium, so
they bend through different angles inside the medium like prism.
 The band of colored components in a light beam is called its spectrum.

 These colors, in order of decreasing wavelength and increasing frequency are red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet (ROYGBIV).
 Violet light deviates the most, red the least, andthe remaining colors in the visible
spectrum fall between these extremes.
 The dispersion of light into a spectrum is demonstrated most vividly in nature by the
formation of a rainbow, which is often seen by an observer positioned between the
Sun and a rain shower

 A rainbow is a natural spectrum appearing in the sky always formed in a direction opposite
to that of the Sun