Properties of

Light
MODULE 57
 EFFECTS OF
MATERIALS ON
LIGHT
How does a material respond
when light is incident upon
it?
Different materials respond differently when
struck by light.
Clear plastic bags
- allow light to pass through them in straight
lines.
Green leaf
- absorb all the light that strikes it but reflects
the green wavelength.
Wax paper
- allow light to pass through them, except that
the light becomes scattered.
Light may be:

Transmitted
Reflected
Absorbed or
Scattered as it
strikes a material.
 These phenomena are influenced by the
nature of the material which light strikes.

Opaque materials
- materials that absorb light waves that fall on
them.
- brick, wood and metal
 Transparent materials
- materials that transmit light waves and permit objects
to be seen clearly through them.
- ex. Glass and some plastics

Translucent materials
- allow light to be transmitted through them but its rays
are distorted during the passage
- ex. Lampshades, wax paper and frosted glass
REFLECTION
Reflection
- what you see when you look at an object depends on how its
surface reflects light.

Diffuse Reflection
- light that is reflected by a rough-textured or uneven surface such
as a wall, paper and cloth is scattered in many different directions.
- allows us to see objects from any angle.

Regular or Specular Reflection

- light that strikes a smooth, flat and shiny surface, such as a
mirror, a piece of metal or undisturbed water, is reflected in one
direction
- It enables us to see an image on the surface
REFRACTION
Refraction
- the bending of light as it travels from a transparent
medium of one density to another medium of a different
optical density
- when the light passes from a substance with a lower
optical density into another with a higher optical density, it
slows down and bends toward the normal. The reverse is
true when light passes from a substance with a higher
optical density into another with a lower optical density.
- light travels fast in air, slow in water and slower still in
glass
Glass
- causes light to bend more than either air or water
because glass refracts light more.
- it has a higher index of refraction
* index of refraction
- the measure of how much a ray of light bends when
it enters a material
- the higher the index of refraction of a medium, the
more it bends light
DISPERSION
Dispersion
- the process by which light is separated into its
colors due to differences in degrees of refraction

angle of
deviation

prism

angle of
dispersion

Light is bent as it enters and leaves a prism.

Prism
- when a narrow beam of white light enters
triangular glass block

Spectrum
- the beam splits into the different range of
colors
 Color Wavelength (m) Frequency (Hz)
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet

Each color correspond to a given wavelength

range. Red light has the longest wavelength and
violet has the shortest.
Refraction occurs when light
rays pass through the
raindrop, while reflection
occurs at the inside surface of
the raindrop.
TOTAL INTERNAL
REFLECTION
Total Internal Reflection
- all the light is reflected internally
- gives a diamond exquisite sparkle
- underlies the usefulness of optical fibers

Material Critical Angle

Water
Acrylic plastic
Glass
Diamond
Hematite
Critical Angle of Some
Materials
The inside surface of water, glass or other
transparent materials can act like a perfect
mirror.

When light travels from a denser to a less dense

medium and strikes the surface at an angle
greater than the critical angle (the least angle of
incidence) of a material, the light beam is not
able to get out of the denser material.
INTERFERENCE
Soap bubbles separate sunlight into it’s
various colors as a result of a wave
phenomenon called interference.
Thomas Young
- physicist and physician
- performed an experiment demonstrating the wave
nature of light that Christian Huygens had proposed
earlier.
- allowed monochromatic light, or light with a single
color, to pass through two closely spaced narrow
slits.
- his double-slit experiment not only demonstrated
the wave nature of light but also allowed him to
measure it’s wavelength.
 Fringes
- when the light reaches the screen, an interesting pattern of
bright and dark bands is seen.

Constructive Interference
- where waves from two slits arrive in phase and reinforce
each other.
- bright fringes

Destructive interference
- where the waves cancel each other out.
- dark fringes
DIFFRACTION
 Young’s double-slit experiment
- shows the spreading out of light when
passing through a small slit or around sharp
edges or corners because of diffraction
Diffraction
- is a demonstration of Huygens’ principle which
states that every point on any wavefront of light
from a point source may be regarded as a new
point source of secondary waves.
When a wavefront reaches the edge
of a corner, a secondary wave is
formed at that point and makes
another wavefront.
SCATTERING OF
LIGHT
Atmosphere
- mixture of gases (such as nitrogen, and oxygen),
droplets of water, and solid particles (like dust, soot,
ashes, pollen, salt from ocean and pollutants).
- it’s thickness varies, depending upon your location
- it is densest (thickest) near the earth and gradually
thins out as you go higher.
Rayleigh scattering
- light travels in straight lines as long as nothing
disturbs it. As light moves through the atmosphere, it
bumps into bits of solid particle or gas molecules and
becomes scattered in all directions.
- named after Lord John Rayleigh
- first discovered in the 1870s

Lord John Rayleigh

- English physicist
What makes sunset and sunrise
red ?
At sunset or sunrise when the sun is near the horizon
or low in the sky, sunlight travels a longer distance
through the atmosphere before it gets to your eyes.
Only the longer wavelengths such as orange and red
are left, making the sun and the sky around it appear
red or orange.
Why is the sky blue?
 The blue appearance of the sky is also a
scattering phenomenon. As light moves
through the atmosphere, most of the longer
wavelengths pass straight through.
POLARIZATION
 Polarized
- light waves whose vibrations are confined
to parallel planes
Polarized light
- can be produced by transmission through
certain crystals aligned in a particular
direction
Polarizer
- polarizing sheet that transmits only the wave
that vibrates parallel to the alignment of the
crystals in it.
Result is:
Plane-polarized light
- components vibrate only in one direction.
Analyzer
- second polarizing sheet that is oriented
perpendicular to the first polaroid sheet.
Result is:
Polarized light transmitted by the polarizer
is completely blocked off.
 Polaroid sunglasses and polarizers in windshields
and rearview mirrors of automobiles
- transparent materials in which embedded crystals
are aligned in a particular direction.
- are designed to cut out reflected glare from
horizontal surfaces.