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The principal ray or chief ray (sometimes known as the b ray) in an optical system is the meridional ray that starts at an edge of an object and passes through the center of the aperture stop. [5] [8] [7] The distance between the chief ray (or an extension of it for a virtual image) and the optical axis at an image location defines the size of ...
Today, the pure science of optics is called optical science or optical physics to distinguish it from applied optical sciences, which are referred to as optical engineering. Prominent subfields of optical engineering include illumination engineering , photonics , and optoelectronics with practical applications like lens design , fabrication and ...
The angle of incidence, in geometric optics, is the angle between a ray incident on a surface and the line perpendicular (at 90 degree angle) to the surface at the point of incidence, called the normal. The ray can be formed by any waves, such as optical, acoustic, microwave, and X-ray. In the figure below, the line representing a ray makes an ...
Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of rays.The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstances.
Optical radiation is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths between 100 nm and 1 mm. [1] [2] This range includes visible light, infrared light, and part of the ultraviolet spectrum. [3] Optical radiation is non-ionizing, [4] and can be focused with lenses and manipulated by other optical elements.
In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics that studies interference, diffraction, polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric optics is not valid. This usage tends not to include effects such as quantum noise in optical communication, which is studied in the sub-branch of coherence ...
Ray tracing of a beam of light passing through a medium with changing refractive index.The ray is advanced by a small amount, and then the direction is re-calculated. Ray tracing works by assuming that the particle or wave can be modeled as a large number of very narrow beams (), and that there exists some distance, possibly very small, over which such a ray is locally straight.
In ray diagrams (such as the images on the right), real rays of light are always represented by full, solid lines; perceived or extrapolated rays of light are represented by dashed lines. A real image occurs at points where rays actually converge, whereas a virtual image occurs at points that rays appear to be diverging from.