on

"Total Internal Reflection"

Submitted by : Submitted to :
Jashmeet singh Vaibhav Dubey
Class - XII Lecturer in Physics

Certificate

This is to certify that the investigatory Project Report

entitled “Total Internal Reflection” submitted by student
of Class XII is original and has been completed by him
under my supervision and is completed in all respect for
AISSCE -2022-2023.
(Signature of Lecturer in Physics)

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Contents

1. Certificate

2. Introduction

3. Total Internal Reflection

4. Conditions for Total Internal Reflection

5. Relation between refractive index () and critical angle (C)

6. Applications of Total Internal Reflection

7. Uses

8. Bibliography

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Introduction

Whenever a ray of incident light travels from one medium to

another, its path is changed i.e. it gets refracted.

If the ray travels from denser medium to rarer medium, it suffers

deviation away from the normal at the point of incidence. As the
angle of incidence is increased, the angle of refraction also keeps
on increasing. At a certain angle of incidence, called the critical
angle, the refracted ray grazes along the surface of separation i.e.
angle of refraction becomes just go. If the angle of incidence is
further increased, no refraction takes place. Instead such a ray
gets reflection inside the medium itself. This phenomenon is
called total internal reflection.

Refraction :

The phenomenon of bending of light when it come from one

medium to another medium is called refraction.

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Reflection :

The phenomenon in which a ray comes from one medium and

bending of that ray in same medium i.e. Total Internal Reflection
takes place called reflection.

Total Internal Reflection

Total internal reflection is the phenomenon of reflection of light

which occurs when a ray of light traveling in a denser medium is
incident at the interfere of the two media at an angle greater than
the critical angle for that pair of media.

Consider a surface xy separates the rarer medium a from the

denser medium b. A ray of light OA from the object O in denser
medium incident normally on the surface of separation, gets
refracted into the rarer medium as such along AL. Another ray of
light incident along the oblique path OA, is refracted away from
normal along the path A1B1 in rarer medium. As the angle of
incidence is increased, the angle of refraction also goes on
increasing, till for a certain angle of incidence C, called the critical
angle. When angle of incidence is greater than critical angle then
total internal reflection takes place.

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Conditions for Total Internal Reflection

1. The ray incident on the interface should travel in optically

denser medium.

2. The angle of incidence should be greater than the critical angle

for the given pair of media.

Introduction

Relation between refractive index (μ) and critical angle (C)

When refraction takes place at point C, it follows that the

refractive index of medium a w.r.t. medium b is given by

bμa = sin i/sin r

aμb = sin r/sin i

if i = c (critical angle)

r = 90°

aμb = sin 90°/ sin C

= 1/ sin C

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Refractive index is inversely proportional to sin of critical angle.

Its relation with polarizing angle :

According to Brewster’s Law, when light is incident at polarizing

angle at the interface of a refracting medium, the refractive index
of the medium is equal to the tengent of the polarizing angle.

If P is polarizing angle and u, the refractive index of the refracting

medium, then u = tan P.

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Applications of Total Internal Reflection

1. Totally Reflection Prism :

To deviate a ray of light through 90° and 180°.

A right angled isosceles prism can be used to cause total internal

reflection. In such a right angled prism when a ray of light is
incident normally to its face AB, it passes into prism as incidence is
45°. But for glass (μ = 1.5), the value of critical angle is about
41.8°. Since the value of incident angle is greater than the critical
angle for glass, the ray of right suffers total internal refection. As a
result, it gets incident on the force AC at 90° and comes out of the
prism as such. It follows that the path of the ray of right was been
deviated by the prism through 90°.

The path of a ray undergoing a deviation of 90o due to one

internal reflection but in same way and by same process due to
two internal reflection, a ray can be deviated through 180°. This
arrangement is used in prism-binoculars.

Advantages of Totally Reflecting Prism over the Silvered Plane

Mirror.

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A reflecting prism does not require any silvering.

A silvered plane mirror always absorbs some light. In a good

mirror, the reflection of light about 90-95%. However, in a
reflecting prism, almost 100% reflection is secured.

Due to imperfect and non-uniform silvering of the mirror, the

image obtained with a mirror is oftenly not of a good quality.

2. Mirage :

It is an optical illusion observed in desert in a hot day. The object

such as tree is observed inverted and observer gets an impression
that there is a pool of water. This phenomena is known as mirage.

Due to intense heat, the surface of earth becomes quite hot and
the temperature of air near the surface of earth is max. The temp
of the other layers of the air goes on decreasing as one goes up.
Dimity as well as refractive index of air increases slightly for higher
layers. Thus a ray of light traveling from point O of a tree passes
through air of gradually decreasing refractive index and is
therefore refracted more and more away from the normal and
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accordingly the angle of incidence goes on increasing. At a layer,
when the angle of incidence becomes greater than the critical
angle, total internal reflection takes place. Then the ray of light
starts traversing layers of increasing refractive index and goes on
bending more and more towards the normal. Ultimately, when
the ray reaches the eye of the observer, it appears to be coming
from the point I. Hence the inverted image of the tree produces
the impression of reflection from a pool of water.

3. Brilliance of Diamonds and Other Precious Stones :

Diamond shines very brightly because it has a very high refractive

index and very low critical angle i.e. = 2.47 & C = 230 . Dur to low
critical angle, a diamond cut so as to have a large number of faces,
such that a ray of light entering it from one face undergoes
repeated total internal reflections from other faces. As a result,
the faces through which the light emerges, shine very brilliantly.

4. Optical Fibres :

In 1870, John Tyndall, a British physicist demonstrated that light

could be made to follow curved path along a thin stream of water
coming out of a water tank. The light follows curved path it suffers
a series of total internal reflections.

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Optical fibres commits of thousands of strands of a very fine
quality glass or quartz of refractive index about 1.7 or so. The
thickness of a strand is about 10-6 cm. The strands are coated
with a layer of some material of lower refractive index (μ=1.5).

When light is incident at a small angle at are end, it gets refracted

into strands and gets incident on the interface of the fibres and
the coating. The angle of incidence being greater than critical
angle, the ray of light undergoes total internal reflections. Each
fibre act as a pipe and such a bundle of fibres can be used to
convey images along paths of any shape. The optical fibre does
not bend light. Instead, light follows the zin-zag path through the
fibres.

5. Looming :

It is an optical illusion observed in the cold countries. In which

observers get an impression that object is placed in air.

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Uses

i) Optical fibres are used inn the field of communication and the
computers.

ii) The optical fibres are used for making medical investigation.

iii) The optical fibre sensors have been used to measure

temperature and pressure.

iv) The optical are used for transmitting the optical signals and the
two dimensional pictures.

v) The optical fibre in the form of photometric sensors are used

for measuring the blood flow in the heart.

vi) The optical fibre in the form of refract meters are used to
determine the refractive indices of liquids.

vii) Optical fibre are used in telephone and other transmitting

cables.

viii) Optical fibre are used in transmission and reception of

electrical signals by converting them first into light signal.

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Bibliography

1. Modern’s abc of Physics.

2. Fingertips of 2022

3. R D Sharma

Physics Projects (teachers signature)

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