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The optical properties of a material define how it interacts with light. The optical properties of matter are studied in optical physics (a subfield of optics) and applied in materials science. The optical properties of matter include: Refractive index; Dispersion; Transmittance and Transmission coefficient; Absorption; Scattering; Turbidity
Researchers in optical physics use and develop light sources that span the electromagnetic spectrum from microwaves to X-rays. The field includes the generation and detection of light, linear and nonlinear optical processes, and spectroscopy. Lasers and laser spectroscopy have transformed optical science.
The mathematical behaviour then becomes linear, allowing optical components and systems to be described by simple matrices. This leads to the techniques of Gaussian optics and paraxial ray tracing, which are used to find basic properties of optical systems, such as approximate image and object positions and magnifications. [37]
Absence of structural defects (voids, cracks, etc.) and molecular structure of most liquids are mostly responsible for excellent optical transmission. Materials that do not transmit light are called opaque. Many such substances have a chemical composition which includes what are referred to as absorption centers.
These properties account for the fact that optical rotatory dispersion and circular dichroism are widely used in organic and inorganic chemistry and in biochemistry. In the absence of magnetic fields, only chiral substances exhibit optical rotatory dispersion and circular dichroism.
Some plastics also have more advantageous optical properties than glass, such as better transmission of visible light and greater absorption of ultraviolet light. [6] Some plastics have a greater index of refraction than most types of glass; this is useful in the making of corrective lenses shaped to correct various vision abnormalities such as ...
The first nonlinear optical effect to be predicted was two-photon absorption, by Maria Goeppert Mayer for her PhD in 1931, but it remained an unexplored theoretical curiosity until 1961 and the almost simultaneous observation of two-photon absorption at Bell Labs [4] and the discovery of second-harmonic generation by Peter Franken et al. at University of Michigan, both shortly after the ...
Many crystals are anisotropic to light ("optical anisotropy"), and exhibit properties such as birefringence. Crystal optics describes light propagation in these media. An "axis of anisotropy" is defined as the axis along which isotropy is broken (or an axis of symmetry, such as normal to crystalline layers).