OPTICS PHYSICS

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light. Because light is an electromagnetic wave, other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves exhibit similar properties.[1] Most optical phenomena can be accounted for using the classical electromagnetic description of light. Complete electromagnetic descriptions of light are, however, often difficult to apply in practice. Practical optics is usually done using simplified models. The most common of these, geometric optics, treats light as a collection of rays that travel in straight lines and bend when they pass through or reflect from surfaces. Physical optics is a more comprehensive model of light, which includes wave effects such as diffraction and interference that cannot be accounted for in geometric optics. Historically, the ray-based model of light was developed first, followed by the wave model of light. Progress in electromagnetic theory in the 19th century led to the discovery that light waves were in fact electromagnetic radiation. Some phenomena depend on the fact that light has both wave-like and particle-like properties. Explanation of these effects requires quantum mechanics. When considering light's particle-like properties, the light is modeled as a collection of particles called "photons". Quantum optics deals with the application of quantum mechanics to optical systems.

Optical science is relevant to and studied in many related disciplines including astronomy, various engineering fields, photography, and medicine (particularly ophthalmology and optometry). Practical applications of optics are found in a variety of technologies and everyday objects, including mirrors, lenses, telescopes, microscopes, lasers, and fiber optics. Physical optics or wave optics builds on Huygens's principle, which states that every point on an advancing wavefront is the center of a new disturbance. When combined with the superposition principle, this explains how optical phenomena are manifested when there are multiple sources or obstructions that are spaced at distances similar to the wavelength of the light.[35] Complex models based on physical optics can account for the propagation of any wavefront through an optical system, including predicting the wavelength, amplitude, and phase of the wave.[35] Additionally, all of the results from geometrical optics can be recovered using the techniques of Fourier optics which apply many of the same mathematical and analytical techniques used in acoustic engineering and signal processing. Using numerical modeling on a computer, optical scientists can simulate the propagation of light and account for most diffraction, interference, and polarization effects. Such simulations typically still rely on approximations, however, so this is not a full electromagnetic wave theory model of the propagation of light. Such a full model is computationally demanding and is normally only used to solve small-scale problems that require extraordinary accuracy. Gaussian beam propagation is a simple paraxial physical optics model for the propagation of coherent radiation such as laser beams. This technique partially accounts for diffraction, allowing accurate calculations of the rate at which a laser beam expands with distance, and the minimum size to which the beam can be focused. Gaussian beam propagation thus bridges the gap between geometric and physical optics.

Classical optics

Light propagates through space as a wave with amplitude, wavelength, frequency, and speed that depend on how it was emitted and on the medium through which it travels. In pre-quantum-mechanical optics, light is an electromagnetic wave composed of oscillating electric and magnetic fields. These fields continually generate each other, as the wave propagates through space and oscillates in time.[27] The frequency of a light wave is determined by the period of the oscillations. The frequency does not normally change as the wave travels through different materials ("media"), but the speed of the wave depends on the medium. The speed, frequency, and wavelength of a wave are related by the formula

where v is the speed, is the wavelength and f is the frequency. Because the frequency is fixed, a change in the wave's speed produces a change in its wavelength.[28] The speed of light in a medium is typically characterized by the index of refraction, n, which is the ratio of the speed of light in vacuum, c, to the speed in the medium: n = c / v.

The speed of light in vacuum is a constant, which is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second. Thus, a light ray with a wavelength of in a vacuum will have a wavelength of / n in a material with index of refraction n. The amplitude of the light wave is related to the intensity of the light, which is related to the energy stored in the wave's electric and magnetic fields. Traditional optics is divided into two main branches: geometrical optics and physical optics.

Activity
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