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Angle of incidence (optics)

In geometric optics, the angle of incidence is the angle between a ray incident on a surface and the line perpendicular to the
surface at the point of incidence, called the normal. The ray can be formed by any wave: optical, acoustic, microwave, X-ray and
so on. In the figure below, the line representing a ray makes an angle θ with the normal (dotted line). The angle of incidence at
which light is first totally internally reflected is known as the critical angle. The angle of reflection and angle of refraction are
other angles related to beams.

Determining the angle of reflection with respect to a planar surface is trivial, but the computation for almost any other surface
is significantly more difficult. The exact solution for a sphere (which has important applications in astronomy and computer
graphics) is treated in Alhazen's problem.

Refraction of light at the interface between two media.

Contents
Glancing angle
See also
Notes
External links

Glancing angle
When dealing with a beam that is nearly parallel to a surface, it is sometimes more useful to
refer to the angle between the beam and the surface, rather than that between the beam
and the surface normal, in other words 90° minus the angle of incidence. This small angle
is called a glancing angle or grazing angle. Incidence at grazing angles is called
"grazing incidence". Glancing angle is the angle formed by the incident ray or the reflected
ray and the plane(surface).

Grazing incidence diffraction is used in X-ray spectroscopy and atom optics, where Focusing X-rays with glancing
significant reflection can be achieved only at small values of the grazing angle. Ridged reflection
mirrors are designed for reflection of atoms coming at small grazing angle. This angle is
usually measured in milliradians. In optics, there is Lloyd's mirror.

See also
Effect of sun angle on climate
Plane of incidence
Reflection (physics)
Refraction
Season
Total internal reflection

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Angle of incidence (optics) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_incidence_(optics)

Notes

External links
Weisstein, Eric W. "Angle of incidence" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/AngleofIncidence.html). MathWorld.
geometry : rebound on the strip billiards Flash animation (https://web.archive.org/web/20151228182853/http://www.billard-c
fbl.fr/zz_billard_maths.html)

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