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When light passes through a small opening, comparable in size to the Replace any wave front by a collection of sources distributed uniformly over the When studying the propagation of light, we can Huygens' principle also holdsįor electromagnetic waves. With each other to produce the traveling wave.
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The wavelets emitted by all points on the wave front interfere These wavelets propagate outward with the characteristic Lets us treat wave propagation by considering every point on a wave front to be a secondary source of Diffraction results from the interference of an infinite number of wavesĮmitted by a continuous distribution of source points in two or three dimensions. Passing through a finite aperture to spread out as it propagates. (We already encountered interference whenĭiffraction is the tendency of a wave emitted from a finite source or Waves traveling in two or three dimensions. Mathematical treatment is much more involved. Wave optics contains all of ray optics, but the Optical phenomena using the classical theory of radiation, or wave optics. If the wavelengths of the light become comparable to the dimensions of the So, as far as visible light is concerned, matter is quasi-continuous. Individual atoms in a solid are separated by distance on the order of 0.1 nm. So a laser beam with a diameter of 1 mm has a diameter of 2000 wavelengths. Wavelengths in the middle of the visible band are on the order of 500 nm. Consider the wavelength scale of light waves. Under these conditions we can make an approximation called In many situations, the wavelengths of the light being studied are very smallĬompared to the dimensions of the equipment used to study the light. Light is a transverse electromagnetic wave. Phenomena into one of two categories: ray optics and wave optics. In classical physics, we can classify optical Single slit diffraction Single slit diffraction