OPTICS

INTRODUCTION
• Optics, branch of physical science dealing with
the propagation and behavior of light. In a
general sense, light is that part of the
electromagnetic spectrum that extends from X
rays to microwaves and includes the radiant
energy that produces the sensation of vision.

• The study of optics is divided into geometrical

optics and physical optics.
 NATURE OF LIGHT
• Radiant energy has a dual nature and obeys laws that may be explained in
terms of a stream of particles, or packets of energy, called photons, or in
terms of a train of transverse waves. The concept of photons is used to
explain the interactions of light and matter that result in a change in the form
of energy, as in the case of the photoelectric cell or luminescence. The
concept of transverse waves is usually used to explain the propagation of
light through various substances and some of the phenomena of image
formation. Geometrically, a simple transverse wave may be described by
points that oscillate in the same plane back and forth across an axis
perpendicular to the direction of oscillation such that at any instant of time
the envelope of these points is, for example, a sine function that intersects
the axis. The wave front progresses, and the radiant energy travels along the
axis. The oscillating point may be considered to describe the vibration of the
electric component, or vector, of the light wave. The magnetic component
vibrates in a direction perpendicular to that of the electric vector and to the
axis. The magnetic component is ineffective and may be ignored in the study
of visible light.
• The number of complete oscillations, or vibrations , per second of a point on
the light wave is known as the frequency. The wavelength is the linear distance
parallel to the axis between two points in the same phase, or occupying
equivalent positions on the wave, for example, the distance from maximum to
maximum in the case of a sine function representation. Differences in
wavelength manifest themselves as differences in color in the visible spectrum.
The visible range extends from about 350 nanometers (violet) to 750
nanometers (red), a nanometer being equal to a billionth of a meter, or 4 × 10-8
in. White light is a mixture of the visible wavelengths. No sharp boundaries exist
between wavelength regions, but 10 nanometers may be taken as the low
wavelength limit for ultraviolet radiation. Infrared radiation, which includes heat
energy, includes the wavelengths from about 700 nanometers to approximately
1 mm. The velocity of an electromagnetic wave is the product of the frequency
and the wavelength. In a vacuum this velocity is the same for all wavelengths.
The velocity of light in material substances is, with few exceptions, less than in a
vacuum. Also, in material substances this velocity is different for different
wavelengths, as a result of dispersion. The ratio of the velocity of light in
vacuum to the velocity of a particular wavelength of light in a substance is
known as the index of refraction of that substance for the given wavelength.
The index of refraction of a vacuum is equal to 1; that of air is 1.00029, but for
most applications it is also taken to be 1.
• The laws of reflection and refraction of light are usually derived
using the wave theory of light introduced by Dutch
mathematician, astronomer, and physical scientist Christiaan
Huygens. Huygens’s principle states that every point on an initial
wave front may be considered as the source of small, secondary
spherical wavelets that spread out in all directions from their
centers with the same velocity, frequency, and wavelength as the
parent wave front. When the wavelets encounter another
medium or object, each point on the boundary becomes a source
of two new sets of waves. The reflected set travels back into the
first medium, and the refracted set enters the second medium. It
is sometimes simpler and sufficient to represent the propagation
of light by rays rather than by waves. The ray is the flow line, or
direction of travel, of radiant energy, and the assumption is made
that light does not bend around corners. In geometrical optics
the wave theory of light is ignored and rays are traced through an
optical system by applying the laws of reflection and refraction.
GEOMETRIC OPTICS
• This area of optical science concerns the application
of laws of reflection and refraction of light in the
design of lenses and other optical components of
instruments. If a light ray that is traveling through
one homogeneous medium is incident on the
surface of a second homogeneous medium, part of
the light is reflected and part may enter the second
medium as the refracted ray and may or may not
undergo absorption in the second medium.
A. REFLECTION AND REFRACTION
• The amount of light reflected depends on the ratio of the
refractive indexes for the two media. The plane of incidence
contains the incident ray and the normal (line perpendicular)
to the surface at the point of incidence (see Fig. 1). The angle
of incidence (reflection or refraction) is the angle between the
incident (reflected or refracted) ray and this normal. The laws
of reflection state that the angle of incidence is equal to the
angle of reflection and that the incident ray, the reflected ray,
and the normal to the surface at the point of incidence all lie in
the same plane. If the surface of the second medium is smooth
or polished, it may act as a mirror and produce a reflected
image.
• If the mirror is flat, or plane, the image of the object appears
to lie behind the mirror at a distance equal to the distance
between the object and the surface of the mirror. The light
source in Fig. 2 is the object A, and a point on A sends out rays
in all directions. The two rays that strike the mirror at B and C,
for example, are reflected as the rays BD and CE. To an
observer in front of the mirror, these rays appear to come
from the point F behind the mirror. It follows from the laws of
reflection that CF and BF form the same angle with the surface
of the mirror as do AC and AB. If the surface of the second
medium is rough, then normals to various points of the surface
lie in random directions. In that case, rays that may lie in the
same plane when they emerge from a point source
nevertheless lie in random planes of incidence, and therefore
of reflection, and are scattered and cannot form an image.
• Not all of the light that strikes a mirror is
reflected; some of the light can pass through
the mirror or be absorbed by the mirror. Many
scientists thought a perfect mirror—one that
reflects 100 percent of the light that strikes it
—could not exist. However, in 1998, scientists
made a perfect mirror by stacking up
microscopic layers of tellurium and the plastic
polystyrene.
B. SPHERICAL AND ASPHERICAL SURFACES
• Traditionally, most of the terminology of geometrical optics was developed
with reference to spherical reflecting and refracting surfaces. Aspherical
surfaces, however, are sometimes involved. The optic axis is a reference line
that is an axis of symmetry. If the optical component is spherical, the optic axis
passes through the center of a lens or mirror and through the center of
curvature. Light rays from a very distant source are considered to travel parallel
to one another. If rays parallel to the optic axis are incident on a spherical
surface, they are reflected or refracted so that they intersect or appear to
intersect at a point on the optic axis. The distance between this point and the
vertex of a mirror or a thin lens is the focal length. If a lens is thick, calculations
are made with reference to planes called principal planes, rather than to the
surface of the lens. A lens may have two focal lengths, depending on which
surface (if the surfaces are not alike) the light strikes first. If an object is at the
focal point, the rays emerging from it are made parallel to the optic axis after
reflection or refraction.
 If rays from an object are converged by a lens or mirror so that
they actually intersect in front of a mirror or behind a lens, the
image is real and inverted, or upside down. If the rays diverge
after reflection or refraction so that the light only appears to
converge, the image is virtual and erect. The ratio of the height
of the image to the height of the object is the lateral
magnification.
• If it is understood that distances measured from the surface of
a lens or mirror in the direction in which light is traveling are
positive and distances measured in the opposite direction are
negative, then if u is the object distance, v the image distance,
and f is the focal length of a mirror or of a thin lens, the
equation 1/v + 1/u = 1/f applies to spherical mirrors, and the
equation 1/v - 1/u = 1/f applies to spherical lenses. If a simple
lens has surfaces with radii r1 and r2, and the ratio of its
refractive index to that of the medium surrounding it is n, then
1/f = (n - 1) (1/r1 - 1/r2)
C. LENSES

• Lenses made with surfaces of small radii have the shorter focal

lengths. A lens with two convex surfaces will always refract rays
parallel to the optic axis so that they converge to a focus on the
side of the lens opposite to the object. A concave lens surface
will deviate incident rays parallel to the axis away from the axis,
so that even if the second surface of the lens is convex, the rays
diverge and only appear to come to a focus on the same side of
the lens as the object. Concave lenses form only virtual, erect,
and diminished images. If the object distance is greater than the
focal length, a converging lens forms a real and inverted image.
If the object is sufficiently far away, the image is smaller than the
object. If the object distance is smaller than the focal length of
this lens, the image is virtual, erect, and larger than the object.
The observer is then using the lens as a magnifier or
simple microscope. The angle subtended at the eye by
this virtual enlarged image is greater than would be the
angle subtended by the object if it were at the normal
viewing distance. The ratio of these two angles is the
magnifying power of the lens. A lens with a shorter focal
length would cause the angle subtended by the virtual
image to increase and thus cause the magnifying power
to increase. The magnifying power of an instrument is a
measure of its ability to bring the object apparently
closer to the eye. This is distinct from the lateral
magnification of a camera or telescope, for example,
where the ratio of the actual dimensions of a real image
to those of the object increases as the focal length
increases.
• The amount of light a lens can admit increases with
its diameter. Because the area occupied by an image
is proportional to the square of the focal length of the
lens, the light intensity over the image area is directly
proportional to the diameter of the lens and inversely
proportional to the square of the focal length. The
image produced by a lens of 1-in diameter and 8-in
focal length would be one-fourth as bright as the
image formed by a lens of 1-in diameter and 4-in focal
length. The ratio of the focal length to the effective
diameter of a lens is its focal ratio or the so-called f-
number. The reciprocal of this ratio is called the
relative aperture. Lenses having the same relative
aperture have the same light-gathering power,
regardless of the actual diameters and focal lengths.
D. ABERRATION
• Geometrical optics predicts that rays of light emanating from a
point are imaged by spherical optical elements as a small blur. The
outer parts of a spherical surface have a different focal length than
does the central area, and this defect would cause a point to be
imaged as a small circle. The difference in focal length for the
various parts of the spherical section is called spherical aberration.
If, instead of being a portion of a sphere, a concave mirror is a
section of a paraboloid of revolution, parallel rays incident on all
areas of the surface are reflected to a point without spherical
aberration. Combinations of convex and concave lenses can help
to correct spherical aberration, but this defect cannot be
eliminated from a single spherical lens for a real object and image.
• The manifestation of differences in lateral magnification for
rays coming from an object point not on the optic axis is
called coma. If coma is present, light from a point is spread
out into a family of circles that fit into a cone, and in a
plane perpendicular to the optic axis, the image pattern is
comet shaped. Coma may be eliminated for a single object-
image point pair, but not for all such points, by a suitable
choice of surfaces. Corresponding or conjugate object and
image points, free from both spherical aberration and
coma, are known as aplanatic points, and a lens having
such a pair of points is called an aplanatic lens. Astigmatism
is the defect in which the light coming from an off-axis
object point is spread along the direction of the optic axis.
If the object is a vertical line, the cross section of the refracted
beam is an ellipse that collapses first into a horizontal line, spreads
out again, and later becomes a vertical line. If a flat object has any
extent, the surface of best focus is curved, or curvature of field
results. Distortion arises from a variation of magnification with axial
distance and is not caused by a lack of sharpness in the image.
Because the index of refraction varies with wavelength, the focal
length of a lens also varies and causes longitudinal or axial
chromatic aberration. Magnification of different image sizes by
various wavelengths is known as lateral chromatic aberration.
Converging and diverging lenses grouped together, and
combinations of glasses with different dispersions, help to minimize
chromatic aberration. Mirrors are free of this defect. In general,
achromatic lens combinations are corrected for chromatic
aberration for two or three colors.
 PHYSICAL OPTICS
A. Polarization of Light
• The atoms in an ordinary light source emit pulses of radiation
of extremely short duration. Each pulse from a single atom is a
nearly monochromatic (consisting of a single wavelength)
wave train. The electric vector corresponding to the wave does
not rotate about the axis across which it oscillates as the wave
travels through space, but keeps the same angle, or azimuth,
with respect to the direction of travel. The initial azimuth can
have any value. When a large number of atoms are emitting
light, these azimuths are randomly distributed, the properties
of the light beam are the same in all directions, and the light is
said to be unpolarized. If the electric vectors for each wave all
have the same azimuth angle (or all the transverse waves lie in
the same plane), the light is plane, or linearly, polarized.
• The equations that describe the behavior of electromagnetic waves involve two
sets of waves, one with the electric vector vibrating perpendicular to the plane of
incidence and the other with the electric vector vibrating parallel to the plane of
incidence, and all light can be considered as having a component of its electric
vector vibrating in each of these planes.
• A certain synchronism of phase difference may persist in time between the two
vibrations of the component, or the phase differences may be random. If light is
linearly polarized, for example, this phase difference becomes zero or 180°. If the
phase relationship is random, but more of one component is present, the light is
partially polarized. When light is scattered by dust particles, for instance, the light
scattered 90° to the original path of the beam is plane polarized, explaining why
skylight from the zenith is markedly polarized. At angles other than zero or 90° of
incidence, the reflectance at the boundary between two media is not the same for
those two components of vibrations. Less of the component that vibrates parallel
to the plane of incidence is reflected. If light is incident on a nonabsorbing medium
at the so-called Brewster’s angle, named after British physicist David Brewster, the
reflectance of the component vibrating parallel to the plane of incidence is zero. At
this angle of incidence, the reflected ray would be perpendicular to the refracted
ray, and the tangent of this angle of incidence is equal to the refractive index of the
second medium if the first medium is air.
• Certain substances are anisotropic, or display properties with different values when
measured along axes in different directions, and the velocity of light in them depends on the
direction in which the light is traveling. Some crystals are birefringent, or exhibit double
refraction. Unless light is traveling parallel to an axis of symmetry with respect to the
structure of the crystals (the optic axis of the crystal), it is separated into two parts that travel
with different velocities. A uniaxial crystal has one axis. The component with the electric
vector vibrating in a plane containing the optic axis is the ordinary ray; its velocity is the same
in all directions through the crystal, and Snell’s law of refraction holds. The component
vibrating perpendicular to the plane of the optic axis forms the extraordinary ray, and the
velocity of this ray depends on its direction through the crystal. If the ordinary ray travels
faster than the extraordinary ray, the birefringence is positive; otherwise the birefringence is
negative.

• If a crystal is biaxial, no component exists for which the velocity is independent of the

direction of travel. Birefringent materials can be cut and shaped to introduce specific phase
differences between two sets of polarized waves, to separate them, or to analyze the state of
polarization of any incident light. A polarizer transmits only one component of vibration
either by reflecting away the other by means of properly cut prism combinations or by
absorbing the second component. A material that preferentially absorbs one component of
vibration exhibits dichroism, and Polaroid is an example of this. Polaroid consists of many
small dichroic crystals embedded in plastic and identically oriented. If light is unpolarized,
Polaroid absorbs approximately half of it. Because light reflected from a large flat surface
such as water or a wet road is partially polarized, properly oriented Polaroid can absorb more
than half of this reflected glare light. This explains the effectiveness of Polaroid sunglasses.
• The so-called analyzer may be physically the same as a polarizer. If a polarizer and
analyzer are crossed, the analyzer is oriented to allow transmission of vibrations
lying in a plane perpendicular to those transmitted by the polarizer, and blocks or
extinguishes the light passed by the polarizer. Substances that are optically active
rotate the plane of linearly polarized light. Either a crystal or a solution of sugar, for
example, may be optically active. If a solution of sugar is placed between a crossed
polarizer and analyzer, the light is able to pass through. The amount of rotation of
the analyzer required to restore extinction of the light determines the
concentration of the solution. The polarimeter is based on this principle.
• Some substances, such as glass and plastic, that are not normally doubly refracting,
may become so if subjected to stress. If such stressed materials are placed between
a polarizer and analyzer, the bright and dark areas that are seen give information
about the strains. The technology of photoelasticity is based on double refraction
produced by stresses.
• Birefringence can also be introduced in otherwise homogeneous materials by
magnetic and electric fields. The Faraday effect, named after British physicist and
chemist Michael Faraday, refers to the fact that a strong magnetic field across a
liquid may cause it to become doubly refracting, a phenomenon known as the Kerr
effect, after British physicist John Kerr. If an appropriate material is placed between
a crossed polarizer and analyzer, light is transmitted depending on whether the
electric field is on or off. This can act as a very rapid light switch or modulator.
B. Interference and Diffraction
• When two light beams cross, they may interfere or interact in
such a way that the resultant intensity pattern is affected. The
degree of coherence, or waves in phase and of one wavelength,
is related to the ability of waves to produce a steady state that
depends on the phase relationships of successive wave fronts
remaining constant with time. If the phase relationship changes
rapidly and randomly, two beams are incoherent. If two wave
trains are coherent and if the maximum of one wave coincides
with the maximum of another, the two waves combine to
produce a greater intensity in that place than if the two beams
were present but not coherent. If coherence exists and the
maximum of one wave coincides with the minimum of another
wave, the two waves will cancel each other in part or
completely, thus decreasing the intensity. A dark and bright
pattern consisting of interference fringes may be formed.
• To produce a steady interference pattern the two wave trains must be polarized in
the same plane. Atoms in an ordinary light source radiate independently, so a large
light source usually emits incoherent radiation. To obtain coherent light from such
a source, a small portion of the light is selected by means of a pinhole or slit. If this
portion is then again split by double slits, double mirrors, or double prisms, and
the two parts made to travel definite but different paths before they are combined
again, an interference pattern results. Devices that do this are called
interferometers; they are used in measuring such things as diameters of stars,
distances or thicknesses, and deviations of an optical surface from the required
shape in terms of wavelengths of light.
• Light reflected at each surface of an extremely thin transparent film on a smooth
surface can interfere. The rainbow colors of a film of oil on water are a result of
interference, and they demonstrate the importance of the ratio of film thickness to
wavelength. A single film or several films of different material can be used to
increase or decrease the reflectance of a surface. Dichroic beam splitters are stacks
of films of more than one material, controlled in thickness so that one band of
wavelengths is reflected and another band of wavelengths is transmitted. An
interference filter made of such films transmits an extremely narrow band of
wavelengths and reflects the remainder. The shape of the surface of an optical
element can be checked by touching it to a master lens, or flat, and observing the
fringe pattern formed because of the thin layer of air remaining between the two
surfaces.
 Newton’s Rings
A curved piece of glass resting on a flat piece of glass creates colorful concentric
bands, called Newton’s Rings. The rings are caused by light waves reflecting from
the two surfaces and interfering, or combining, with each other. A band of color
appears wherever the distance between the two pieces of glass causes light of that
color to interfere constructively, making the waves bouncing off the two surfaces
reinforce each other. At these places, light waves of other colors interfere
destructively and tend to cancel each other out.
• Light incident on the edge of an obstacle is bent or diffracted, and the
obstacle does not form a sharp geometric shadow. The points on the edge
of the obstacle act as a source of coherent waves, and interference
fringes, called a diffraction pattern, are formed. The shape of the edge of
the obstacle is not exactly reproduced because part of the wave front is
cut off. Because light passes through a finite aperture when it goes
through a lens, a diffraction pattern is formed around the image of an
object. If the object is extremely small, the diffraction pattern appears as a
series of concentric bright and dark rings around a central disk called the
Airy disk, after British astronomer George Biddell Airy. This is true for an
aberration-free lens. If two particles are so close together that the two
diffraction patterns overlap and the bright rings of one pattern fall on the
dark rings of the second pattern, the two particles appear to merge, or
cannot be resolved. German physicist and optician Ernst Karl Abbe first
explained image formation by a microscope with a theory based on the
interference of diffraction patterns of various points on the object.
• Fourier analysis is a mathematical treatment, named after French
mathematician Jean Fourier, that assigns a frequency spectrum to an
object and permits the calculation of the diffraction pattern of an object at
some plane intermediate between the object plane and image plane,
allowing the appearance of the image to be calculated.
 This is possible because a complex wave can be considered to
consist of a combination of simple waves. Optical systems are
sometimes evaluated by choosing an object of known Fourier
components and then evaluating the Fourier components present
in the image. Such procedures measure the optical transfer
function. Extrapolations of these techniques sometimes allow
extraction of information from poor images. Statistical theories
have also been included in analyses of the recording of images.
• A diffraction grating consists of several thousand slits that are equal
in width and equally spaced (formed by ruling lines on glass or
metal with a fine diamond point). Each slit gives rise to a diffraction
pattern, and the many diffraction patterns interfere. If white light is
incident, a continuous spectrum is formed. Prisms and gratings are
used in instruments such as monochromators, spectrographs, or
spectrophotometers to provide nearly monochromatic light or to
analyze the wavelengths present in the incident light .
C. Stimulated Emission

• The atoms in common light sources, such as the incandescent lamp, fluorescent lamp,

and neon lamp, produce light by spontaneous emission, and the radiation is
incoherent. If a sufficient number of atoms have absorbed energy so that they are
excited into appropriate states of higher energy, stimulated emission can occur. Light of
a certain wavelength can produce additional light of the same wavelength that has the
same phase and direction as the original light, and it will be coherent. Stimulated
emission amplifies the amount of radiation having a given wavelength, and this
radiation has a very narrow beam spread and a long coherence path. The material that
is excited may be a gas, a liquid, or solid, but it must be contained or shaped to form an
interferometer in which the wavelength being amplified is reflected back and forth
many times. A small fraction of the excited radiation is transmitted by one of the
mirrors of the interferometers. Maser is an acronym for microwave amplification by
stimulated emission of radiation. If optical frequencies are being amplified by
stimulated emission, the term laser, an acronym for light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation, is commonly used. Energizing a large number of atoms to be in
the appropriate upper state is called pumping. Pumping may be optical or electrical.
Because lasers can be made to emit pulses of extremely high energy that have a very
narrow beam spread, laser light sent to the Moon and reflected back to the Earth can
be detected. The intense narrow beam of the laser has found practical application in
surgery and in the cutting of metals.
• Hungarian-born British physicist and electrical engineer
Dennis Gabor first noted that if the diffraction pattern of
an object could be recorded and the phase information
also retained, the image of the object could be
reconstructed by coherent illumination of the recorded
diffraction pattern. Illuminating the diffraction pattern
with a wavelength longer than that used to produce the
diffraction pattern would result in magnification.
Because the absolute phase of a light wave cannot be
directly detected physically, it was necessary to provide
a reference beam coherent with the beam illuminating
the object to interfere with the diffraction pattern and
provide phase information. Before the development of
the laser, the Gabor scheme was limited by the lack of
sufficiently intense coherent light sources.
• A hologram is a photographic record of the interference
between a reference beam and the diffraction pattern of the
object. Light from a single laser is separated into two beams.
The reference beam illuminates the photographic plate, perhaps
via a lens and mirror, and the second beam illuminates the
object, which forms a diffraction pattern on the photographic
plate. If the processed hologram is illuminated by coherent light,
not necessarily of the same wavelength that was used to make
the hologram, the image of the object is reconstructed, and a
three-dimensional image of the object can be obtained.
• Intense, coherent laser beams permit the study of optical effects
that are produced by the interaction of certain substances with
electric fields and that depend on the square or third power of
the field strength. This area of study is called nonlinear optics,
and the interactions being studied affect the refractive index of
the substances. The Kerr effect, mentioned earlier, belongs to
this group of phenomena.
• Harmonic generation of light has been observed. Infrared laser
light of wavelength 1.06 micrometers, for example, can be
changed to green light with a wavelength of 0.53 micrometers
in a crystal of barium sodium niobate. Broadly tunable sources
of coherent light in the visible and near-infrared ranges can be
produced by pumping with light or radiation of shorter
wavelengths. A lithium niobate crystal can be made to
fluoresce in red, yellow, and green by pumping it with laser
light having a wavelength of 488 nanometers. Certain
scattering phenomena can be stimulated by a single laser to
produce a source of intense, pulsed, monochromatic beams at
a wide variety of wavelengths. One of the phenomena
observed in high-power optical experiments is a self-focusing
effect that produces extremely short-lived filaments as small as
5 micrometers in diameter. Nonlinear optical effects are
applied in developing efficient broadband modulators for
communication systems.
 INTERFERENCE OF LIGHT IN BUBBLES

The different colors that appear to streak the surface of soap bubbles
correspond to different wavelengths of visible light interfering with each other
at that point on the bubble’s surface.