In optics, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its

frequency.[1] Media having this common property may be termed dispersive media. Sometimes the
term chromatic dispersion is used for specificity. Although the term is used in the field of optics to
describe light and other electromagnetic waves, dispersion in the same sense can apply to any sort
of wave motion such as acoustic dispersion in the case of sound and seismic waves, in gravity
waves (ocean waves), and for telecommunication signals propagating along transmission lines (such
as coaxial cable) or optical fiber.
In optics, one important and familiar consequence of dispersion is the change in the angle
of refraction of different colors of light,[2] as seen in the spectrum produced by a dispersive prism and
in chromatic aberration of lenses. Design of compound achromatic lenses, in which chromatic
aberration is largely cancelled, uses a quantification of a glass's dispersion given by its Abbe
number V, where lowerAbbe numbers correspond to greater dispersion over the visible spectrum. In
some applications such as telecommunications, the absolute phase of a wave is often not important
but only the propagation of wave packets or "pulses"; in that case one is interested only in variations
of group velocity with frequency, so-called group-velocity dispersion (GVD).