Definition of Light Waves

You are surrounded by electromagnetic waves. They're everywhere! From the light you can see,
to the infrared your body is producing, to the ultraviolet coming through your window from the
sun. You could not escape the waves if you tried. But then again, why would you want to?
The term light waves can be used differently by different people. Physicists tend to casually use
'light waves' to mean exactly the same thing as electromagnetic waves, but most non-physicists
do not. So, what is the difference?
Electromagnetic waves (or electromagnetic radiation) are waves made of oscillating magnetic
and electric fields, and include radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-
rays and gamma rays. Like all waves, they carry energy, and that energy can be very high-
intensity (like the electromagnetic waves we receive from the sun). When looking at the visible
light spectrum, the blue end of the electromagnetic spectrum is high frequency, high energy and
short wavelength. The red end of the electromagnetic spectrum is low frequency, low energy and
long wavelength.
Light is just one part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the part that our eyes can see. So when
most people talk about light waves, this is what they mean. However, in physics, 'light waves'
often refer to any and all waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, and this is what we will discuss
in this lesson.

The Different Types of Light Waves

Radio waves are at the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum. The red end is also the lowest
energy, the lowest frequency and the longest wavelength.
Radio waves are mostly used in communications, to send signals from one place to another.
Radio stations, unsurprisingly, use radio waves, as do cell phones, televisions, and wireless
networking. Due to the long wavelength of radio waves, they can be bounced off the Earth's
ionosphere, allowing radio stations to transmit their broadcasts over long distances, without
being in line-of-sight of all their listeners.
 Cell phones use radio waves.

Microwaves are the next closest to the red end of the spectrum. You can probably guess that
microwaves are used in our kitchen microwaves to cook your food. They are of a high enough
energy that they can increase the motion of the molecules in your food without ionizing the
atoms (allowing electrons to escape). This is important, because it means that the food will only
be heated - its chemical composition will remain the same.

Microwaves use. . . microwaves.

Infrared has a wavelength just a little longer than what our eyes can detect. The human body has
a temperature that produces radiation in this part of the spectrum, and so infrared detectors can
be used as night-vision cameras. Infrared is also used by remote controls to send signals to
televisions and other AV equipment.
 Infrared image of a human

Visible light is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can detect and so is the part
we are most familiar with in our everyday lives. It is considered to be in the 'middle' of the
electromagnetic spectrum, though this is fairly arbitrary.
Ultraviolet (often shortened to UV) is heading into the blue side of the electromagnetic spectrum,
which is the high energy and shorter wavelength side. Ultraviolet is just a little too short in
wavelength for our eyes to detect. UV waves are high enough energy that they are capable of
ionizing atoms, breaking molecular bonds and even damaging DNA molecules. For this reason,
it is UV that causes sunburn and, therefore, skin cancer. Most of the sun's harmful UV waves are
absorbed by the atmosphere (especially Nitrogen) and the ozone layer, but enough gets through
that we have to be careful by wearing sunscreen and using UV eye protection.
X-Rays are very high energy and, like UV, they can ionize atoms in the body and cause damage.
However, at the right wavelengths and in the right quantities, they can be safely bounced off
body tissues to create x-ray images of the inside of the human body. X-rays are also created by
neutron stars, black holes and nebulae, and x-ray telescopes are, therefore, useful in astrophysics
research.
 Medical x-ray imagery

What Is Visible Light?

By Jim Lucas, Live Science Contributor | April 30, 2015 01:21am ET

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A prism can break white light up into the visible light spectrum.

Credit: NASA

Visible light is a form of electromagnetic (EM) radiation, as are radio waves, infrared radiation,
ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and microwaves. Generally, visible light is defined as the
wavelengths that are visible to most human eyes.

EM radiation is transmitted in waves or particles at different wavelengths and frequencies. This

broad range of wavelengths is known as the electromagnetic spectrum. That spectrum is typically
divided into seven regions in order of decreasing wavelength and increasing energy and
frequency. The common designations are radio waves, microwaves, infrared (IR), visible light,
ultraviolet (UV), X-rays and gamma-rays. 
Visible light falls in the range of the EM spectrum between infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV). It
has frequencies of about 4 × 1014 to 8 × 1014 cycles per second, or hertz (Hz) and wavelengths of
about 740 nanometers (nm) or 2.9 × 10−5 inches, to 380 nm (1.5 × 10−5 inches). 
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Color
Perhaps the most important characteristic of visible light is color. Color is both an inherent
property of light and an artifact of the human eye. Objects don't "have" color, according to Glenn
Elert, author of the website The Physics Hypertextbook. Rather, they give off light that "appears"
to be a color. In other words, Elert writes, color exists only in the mind of the beholder.
Our eyes contain specialized cells, called cones, that act as receivers tuned to the wavelengths of
this narrow band of the EM spectrum, according to NASA's Mission Science website. Light at
the lower end of the visible spectrum, having a longer wavelength, about 740 nm, is seen as red;
light in the middle of the spectrum is seen as green; and light at the upper end of the spectrum,
with a wavelength of about 380 nm, is seen as violet. All other colors that we perceive are
mixtures of these colors. 
For instance, yellow contains both red and green; cyan is a mixture of green and blue, and
magenta is blend of red and blue. White light contains all colors in combination. Black is a total
absence of light. The first person to realize that white light was made up of the colors of the
rainbow was Isaac Newton, who in 1666 passed sunlight through a narrow slit and then a prism
to project the colored spectrum onto a wall, according to Michael Fowler, a physics professor at
the University of Virginia.
Color and temperature
As objects grow hotter, they radiate energy dominated by shorter wavelengths, which we
perceive as changing colors, according to NASA. For example, the flame of a blowtorch changes
from reddish to blue as it is adjusted to burn hotter. This process of turning heat energy into light
energy is called incandescence, according to the Institute for Dynamic Educational
Advancement's website, WebExhibits.org.

Incandescent light is produced when hot matter releases a portion of its thermal vibration energy
as photons. At about 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit), the energy radiated by an
object reaches the infrared. As the temperature increases, the energy moves into the visible
spectrum and the object appears to have a reddish glow. As the object gets hotter, the color
changes to "white hot" and eventually to blue.

Visible light astronomy

The color of hot objects, such as stars, can be used to estimate their temperatures, according to
IDEA. For example, the sun's surface temperature is about 5,800 Kelvin (9,980 F or 5,527 C).
The light emitted has a peak wavelength of about 550 nm, which we perceive as visible white
light (or slightly yellowish). 

According to NASA, if the sun's surface temperature were cooler, about 3,000 C, it would look
reddish, like the star Betelgeuse. If it were hotter, about 12,000 C, it would look blue, like the
star Rigel.

Astronomers can also determine what objects are made of because each element absorbs light at
specific wavelengths, called an absorption spectrum. By knowing the absorption spectra of
elements, astronomers can use spectroscopes to determine the chemical composition of stars,
dust clouds and other distant objects.
The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave
March 2, 2015

(Phys.org)—Light behaves both as a particle and as a wave. Since the days of Einstein,
scientists have been trying to directly observe both of these aspects of light at the same
time. Now, scientists at EPFL have succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of
this dual behavior.
Quantum mechanics tells us that light can behave simultaneously as a particle or a
wave. However, there has never been an experiment able to capture both natures of
light at the same time; the closest we have come is seeing either wave or particle, but
always at different times. Taking a radically different experimental approach, EPFL
scientists have now been able to take the first ever snapshot of light behaving both as a
wave and as a particle. The breakthrough work is published in Nature Communications.
When UV light hits a metal surface, it causes an emission of electrons. Albert Einstein
explained this "photoelectric" effect by proposing that light – thought to only be a wave –
is also a stream of particles. Even though a variety of experiments have successfully
observed both the particle- and wave-like behaviors of light, they have never been able
to observe both at the same time.
A research team led by Fabrizio Carbone at EPFL has now carried out an experiment
with a clever twist: using electrons to image light. The researchers have captured, for
the first time ever, a single snapshot of light behaving simultaneously as both a wave
and a stream of particles.
The experiment is set up like this: A pulse of laser light is fired at a tiny metallic
nanowire. The laser adds energy to the charged particles in the nanowire, causing them
to vibrate. Light travels along this tiny wire in two possible directions, like cars on a
highway. When waves traveling in opposite directions meet each other they form a new
wave that looks like it is standing in place. Here, this standing wave becomes the
source of light for the experiment, radiating around the nanowire.
This is where the experiment's trick comes in: The scientists shot a stream of electrons
close to the nanowire, using them to image the standing wave of light. As the electrons
interacted with the confined light on the nanowire, they either sped up or slowed down.
Using the ultrafast microscope to image the position where this change in speed
occurred, Carbone's team could now visualize the standing wave, which acts as a
fingerprint of the wave-nature of light.

Credit: Fabrizio Carbone/EPFL

While this phenomenon shows the wave-like nature of light, it simultaneously

demonstrated its particle aspect as well. As the electrons pass close to the standing
wave of light, they "hit" the light's particles, the photons. As mentioned above, this
affects their speed, making them move faster or slower. This change in speed appears
as an exchange of energy "packets" (quanta) between electrons and photons. The very
occurrence of these energy packets shows that the light on the nanowire behaves as a
particle.
"This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum
mechanics – and its paradoxical nature – directly," says Fabrizio Carbone. In addition,
the importance of this pioneering work can extend beyond fundamental science and to
future technologies. As Carbone explains: "Being able to image and control quantum
phenomena at the nanometer scale like this opens up a new route towards quantum
computing."