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In a dispersive prism, material dispersion (a wavelength-dependent refractive index) causes different colors to refract at different angles, splitting white light into a spectrum. A compact fluorescent lamp seen through an Amici prism. Dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency. [1]
A usual disadvantage of prisms is lower dispersion than a well-chosen grating can achieve. Prisms are sometimes used for the internal reflection at the surfaces rather than for dispersion. If light inside the prism hits one of the surfaces at a sufficiently steep angle, total internal reflection occurs and all of the light is
The name "dispersion relation" originally comes from optics. It is possible to make the effective speed of light dependent on wavelength by making light pass through a material which has a non-constant index of refraction, or by using light in a non-uniform medium such as a waveguide. In this case, the waveform will spread over time, such that ...
Since the focal length of the lens varies with the color of the light different colors of light are brought to focus at different distances from the lens or with different levels of magnification. Chromatic aberration manifests itself as "fringes" of color along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image.
When a beam of white light passes from air into a material having an index of refraction that varies with frequency (and wavelength), a phenomenon known as dispersion occurs, in which different coloured components of the white light are refracted at different angles, i.e., they bend by different amounts at the interface, so that they become ...
Optical activity is normally observed for transmitted light. However, in 1988, M. P. Silverman discovered that polarization rotation can also occur for light reflected from chiral substances. [32] Shortly after, it was observed that chiral media can also reflect left-handed and right-handed circularly polarized waves with different efficiencies ...
Rayleigh scattering is defined by a mathematical formula that requires the light-scattering particles to be far smaller than the wavelength of the light. [6] For a dispersion of particles to qualify for the Rayleigh formula, the particle sizes need to be below roughly 40 nanometres (for visible light), [citation needed] and the particles may be ...
Monochromatic aberrations are caused by the geometry of the lens or mirror and occur both when light is reflected and when it is refracted. They appear even when using monochromatic light, hence the name. Chromatic aberrations are caused by dispersion, the variation of a lens's refractive index with wavelength. Because of dispersion, different ...