INTRODUCTION:

WHAT IS A PRISM...?
Prism, in optics, piece of glass or other transparent material cut with precise angles
and plane faces, useful for analyzing and reflecting light. An ordinary triangular prism can separate white
light into its constituent colors, called a spectrum.
Each color, or wavelength, making up the white light is bent, or refracted, a different amount; the
shorter wavelengths (those toward the violet end of the spectrum) are bent the most, and the
longer wavelengths (those toward the red end of the spectrum) are bent the least. Prisms of this kind aroused
in certain spectroscopes, instruments for analyzing light and for determining the identity and structure of
materials that emit or absorb light.

HOW DO PRISMS WORK...?

In the 1600s, Isaac Newton did a series of experiments with prisms and light. He showed
that prisms not only split light into the familiar rainbow colors, but can also recombine them.
The glass of prism, and the angles of its sides, work together to make a fascinating optical
tool.

Effects of Light:
When light passes from the air into glass, it slowdown, and when it leaves
the glass, it speeds up again. If the light hits the glass at an angle instead of dead-on, it
undergoes refraction. The angle at which it hits the glass is not the same as the angle it travels inside
the glass. The light is no longer moving in a straight line, but gets bent at the surface. The
same thing happens when the light leaves the prism--it bends again.

Snell’s Law:
An optical principle called Snell’s Law predicts exactly how this happens.
Snell’s Law deals with the angles that light enters and leaves a prism, and something called
the index of refraction. The index of refraction shows how much light slows down when it goes
into the glass.

Color Changes:
The different colors of light, from red to violet, each get bent at slightly
different angles. Red gets bent the least, violet the most. This causes the colors to fan out and
become distinct.

Second Prism:
The fact that a prism can break light into colors was known before
Newton. But Newton asked what would happen if he put a second prism in the location of the
colors. If the second prism caught all the colors on one of its surfaces, white light came out of
the other side. The same properties that spread the colors apart worked in reverse to
reassemble them.

Additional Experiments:
Newton also asked what would happen if he used second
prism on only one color. Would it break into other colors? His experiment showed that it
didn’t. The colors coming out of a prism are fundamental.
 Reflection:
In addition to refracting light, prisms are also good for reflecting light. If you
look into a prism and turn it in your fingers, you’ll see light reflected off the back side at certain
angles. This is called internal reflection. Some prisms are designed to have several internal
reflecting faces. They can take a telescope image that is upside-down and backwards and flip
it back to normal. Reflecting prisms are used in periscopes and binoculars, as they are more durable
than mirrors.

TYPES OF PRISMS:

Dispersive Prisms: They are used to break up light into its constituent spectral colors. The refractive
index depends on the frequency. The white light that enters the prism has a mixture of different frequencies,
and each frequency bends differently. Egg. Abbe prism, Amici prism, Compound prism

Reflective Prisms: These are used for reflecting light, for flipping, inverting, rotating, or displacing
the light beam. They are generally used for erecting the image in binoculars or single-lens reflex cameras.
Without the use of prisms, the image would become upside down for the very user. Reflective prisms often
use total internal reflection for achieving higher reflectivity. Egg. Porro prism, Pent prism, Dove prism.

Polarizing Prisms: They can split a beam of light into the components of varying polarization. They
are generally made up of birefringent crystalline material. Egg. Nicol prism, Rochon prism, Wollaston
prism.

Deflecting prims: Wedge prisms are used for deflecting a beam of light by a fixed angle. A handful
of such prisms are used for beam steering. Rhomboid prisms laterally displace a beam of light without the
inversion of image. Deck prisms bring daylight below the deck on the sailing ships

WHAT IS A HALLOW PRISM?

A hollow prism is a prism made using glass plate with the center part of the
Prism is vacant. This cavity can be filled with gas or other fluids. Thus, a hollow prism is also
commonly called as a fluid prism.

Why is there no dispersion in hollow prism?

When white light passes through the Prism, different colors suffers deviation through different
angles and light appears tube dispersed. But in a hollow prism dispersion does not take place as all the colors travel with
same speed in the air inside hollow prism. Thus no angular dispersion is there.

What happens when light passes through a hollow prism?

When a white light passes through the hollow prism, it escapes out as it entered because no
refraction takes place. No, when beam of light passes through a prism, there is no spectrum. Actually, Spectrum
is produced by the deviation of different colors due to the refraction of light.

What is a totally reflecting prism?

 A Right angled isosceles prism ,i.e., a 45°-90°-45° Prism. Whenever a ray
falls normally on any face of such a prism, it is incident on the inside face at 45°,that is at an angle greater
than the critical angle of glass(42°); hence this ray is always totally internally reflected.

THESE PRISMS MAY BE USED IN THREE WAYS:

(I) TO DEVIATE A RAY THROUGH 90°

(II) TO DEVIATE A RAY THROUGH 180°
(III) INVERT AN IMAGE WITHOUT THE DEVIATION OF RAYSADVANTAGES OF
TOTALLY REFLEFTING PRISMS OVER PLANE MIRROR:

1. IN PRISMS, THE LIGHT IS TOTALLY REFLECTED, WHILE THERE IS ALWAYSSOME LOSS

OF INTENSITY IN CASE OF PLANE MIRRORS.
2. TH REFLECTING PROPERTIES OF PRISMS ARE PERMANENT, WHILE THESEARE
AFFECTED BY TARNISHING IN CASE OF PLANE MIRRORS.
3. NO MULTIPLE IMAGES ARE FORMED IN PRISMS, WHILE A PLANEMIRROR FORMS A
NUMBER OF FAINT IMAGES IN ADDITIONAL TO APROMINENT IMAGE

THEORY: LIGHT AND REFRACTION

Understanding how a prism works is key to deciding which type of prism fits best for
a specific application. In order to do so, it is important to first understand how light interacts with an optical
surface. This interaction is described by Snell's Law of Refraction:
(1) N1sin (θ1) =n2sin (θ2) n1sin (θ1) =n2sin (θ2)
Where n1 is the index of the incident medium? θ1 is the angle of the incident ray, n2 is the index of the
refracted/reflected medium, and θ2 is the angle of the refracted/reflected ray. Snell's Law describes the
relationship between the angles of incidence and transmission when a ray travels between multiple media.
A prism is notable for its ability to reflect the ray path without the need for a special coating, such as that
required when using a mirror. This is achieved through a phenomenon known as total internal reflection
(TIR).TIR occurs when the incident angle (angle of the incident ray measured from normal) is higher than
the critical angle
(2) sin (θc)=n1n2sin(θc)=n1n2
Where n1 is the index of refraction for the medium where the ray originates, and n2 is the index of
refraction for the medium where the ray exits. It is important to note that TIR only occurs when light travels
from a high index medium to a low index medium.
At the critical angle, the angle of refraction is equal to 90°. Referencing Figure 3, notice that TIR occurs
only if θ exceeds the critical angle. If the angle is below the critical angle, then transmission will occur
along with reflection as given by Snell's Law. If a prism face does not meet TIR specifications for the
desired angle(s), then a reflective coating must be used. This is why some applications require coated
versions of a prism that would otherwise work well uncoated in another application.

HISTORY OF PRISM…
René Descartes had seen light separated into the colors of the rainbow by glass or water, though
the source of the color was unknown. Isaac Newton's 1666 experiment of bending white light through a prism
demonstrated that all the colors already existed in the light, with different color "corpuscles" fanning out
and traveling with different speeds through the prism. It was only later that Young and Fresnel combined
Newton's particle theory with Huygens' wave theory to explain how color arises from the spectrum of light.
Newton arrived at his conclusion by passing the red color from one prism through a second prism and found the
color unchanged. From this, he concluded that the colors must already be present in the incoming light— thus,
the prism did not create colors, but merely separated colors that are already there. He also used a lens and second
prism to recompose the spectrum back into white light. This experiment has become a classic example
of the methodology introduced during the scientific revolution. The result of the experiment dramatically
transformed the field of metaphysics, leading to john Locke’s primary vs secondary quality distinction.
Newton discussed prism dispersion in greate detail in his book Opticks. He also introduced the use of
more than one prism to control dispersion. Newton’s description of his experiment on prism dispersion was
qualitative description of multiple-prism dispersion was not needed until multiple prism laser beam
expanders were introduced in the 1980’s.

Aim/Objectives:
The aim of this project is to investigate dependence of angle of deviation on angle of incidence using a
hollow prism filled one by one with different transparent fluids.

Hypothesis:

The hypothesis of this project is —

 The angle of deviation increases with increase in angle of incidence.

 The angle of deviation does not depend on the liquid used in the hollow prism for deviation.

Apparatus Required:

1. Hallow glass prism

2. Liquids like-

Carbon Disulphide Water Benz aldehyde

 3. Bell pins

4. Stiff drawing board

Theory:

A prism is a transparent optical object with flat polished surfaces that refract light. Prisms can be
made from any material that is transparent including glass and even plastic.

A prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors. Prisms can also be used to
reflect light, or to split light into components with different polarizations.

The refractive index of the liquid is given by the formula:

U=

Where-
 U =refractive index of the liquid.
 a = angle of minimum deviation
 d = angle of prism
 i = angle of incidence
 r =angle of refraction
Diagrams:

Refraction through a prism

 Prism minimum Deviation Angle Experiment

Measure deflection angle through liquid filled prism

Process:

1. Fix a white sheet of paper on the drawing board with help of pins.
2. Keep the prism on the paper and draw its outline as ∆ABC
3. Drop a normal PO on the side AB.
4. Draw the angle of incidence in accordance with the normal PQ and place 2 pins so that they
appear to be in the straight line.
5. Place the prism filled with given sample of liquid on the marked outline ABC.
6. Now take the pins and place them on the side AC so that all the 4 pins appear to be in same line.
7. Remove the prism and draw the line joining the points so obtained.
8. Mark the diagram as shown in the figure below
9. Repeat this with different liquids and different angle of incidence
 Observations:

The following are the observation tables of each of the liquids used to find out their respective refractive
indices-

Benz aldehyde:

Sr. Angle Angle of Angle of

No: of prism incidence deviation

1. 60 30 45

2. 60 35 42

3. 60 37.5 40

4. 60 39 42

5. 60 40 45

U == 1.504
 Water:

Sr. Angle Angle of Angle of

No: of prism incidence deviation

1. 60 30 25

2. 60 35 22

3. 60 40 20

4. 60 45 22

5. 60 50 25

6. 60 55 28
 Dilute sulphuric acid:

Sr. Angle Angle of Angle of

No: of prism incidence deviation

1. 60 20 33

2. 60 30 30

3. 60 35 25

4. 60 40 29

5. 60 45 30

U = = 1.351
 Graphical representation of observations:

Angle of deviation

50

3
5
S

20

15
: 3
9

Conclusion:
 The refractive indices change when the liquid used in the prism changes. From the above experiment we
can also conclude that refractive index of a liquid depends on its optical density.

Refractive indices of the used liquids obtained, when compared with the actual values are as follows

Benz aldehyde:

 Actual = 1.5456
 Obtained=1.504

 Deviation/Error=0.0416

Water:

 Actual = 1.33
 Obtained = 1.306
 Deviation/Error = 0.024

Dil. Sulphuric Acid:

 Actual = 1.43
 Obtained= 1.351
 Deviation/Error = 0.079

Analysis and interpretation:

1. From the observations above, we can analyze that the angle of deviation is depending on the liquid
present in the prism as, the angle of deviation is different for Benz aldehyde, water and dilute sulphuric
acid at 30° (45°, 25° and 30° respectively).

2. We can also see that the angle of deviation does depend on the angle of incidence, as when the
angle of incidence is changed the angle of deviation also changes.

3. The theoretical values of all the angle of deviations for all liquids may vary due to different
concentration and different prisms being used for the experiment. The observations may also be
affected by the physical conditions like humidity and temperature of surroundings.

Conclusions:

Comparing the conclusions to our initial hypothesis, we can say that

Our first hypothesis, i.e. “The angle of deviation increases with increase in angle of incidence" is wrong as
the angle of deviation first decreases then increases with increase in angle of incidence.
 We can further conclude that our second hypothesis, i.e. "The angle of deviation does not depend on the
liquid used in the hollow prism for deviation” is also wrong.

Precautions:

• Angle of incidence should be between 35 and 60 for better observations and accurate readings.

• Pins should be vertically fixed and should not be bent or damaged as reading can change.

• Same hollow prism should be used for all observations to minimize error due to prism.

• Error or deviation in obtained refractive indices must not be more than 0.1.

• The distance between the pins should be more than 10mm.

Applications:

1. Refractive index has the large number of applications. It is mostly applied for identify a particular
substance, confirm its purity, or measure its concentration.

2. Generally it is used to measure the concentration of a solute in an aqueous solution. For a

solution of sugar, the refractive index can be used to determine the sugar content.

3. It can be used to determine the drug concentration in pharmaceutical industry.

4. It is used to calculate focus power of lenses and dispersing power of prisms.