What is Wave Optics?

What is Wave Optics?

Wave optics, also known as physical optics, is a branch of optics that deals with studying various phenomena such as interference, diffraction, and polarization, among others, where the ray approximation of geometric optics is not valid. It involves treating light as an electromagnetic wave and using wave theory to explain the behavior of light....

Wave Optic Theories

The wave theory of light has a long history, dating back to the 17th century. In the 1670s, Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens proposed that light was a wave motion, and he developed the principle of wavefronts and secondary wavelets to explain the behavior of light....

Huygens’ Wave Theory

Huygens’ wave theory of light is a fundamental concept in wave optics that explains the behavior of light as a wave motion. According to Huygens’ principle, every point in a wavefront is a source of wavelets, and these wavelets combine to produce a new wavefront that propagates through the transmission medium....

Maxwell Electromagnetic Theory

In 1864, James Clerk Maxwell proposed that light is an electromagnetic wave in its electromagnetic theory. The theory means that light consists of electric and magnetic fields. It states that light has a transverse nature and finite speed, which is as follows:...

Wavefront and Wave Normal

Wavefront and wavenormal are two important feature of a wave. The detailed explanation of each of them is given below:...

What is Wavefront?

A wavefront is an imaginary surface representing a wave’s corresponding points that vibrate in the same phase. It is the set of all locations in a medium where the wave is at the same phase. Wavefront are classified into three types:...

What is Wave Normal?

Wave normal is a unit vector that is perpendicular to an equiphase surface of a wave and has its positive direction on the same side of the surface as the direction of propagation....

Coherent and Incoherent Sources

Coherent and incoherent sources refer to the characteristics of light waves emitted by different sources....

Interference of Light

Interference of light is a phenomenon where multiple light waves interact with one another under certain circumstances, causing the combined amplitudes of the waves to either increase or decrease....

Wave Optics Formulas

The tabular representation of important formulas used in wave optics is illustrated below:...

Diffraction of Light

Diffraction of light is a phenomenon where light waves bend around corners or pass through an aperture and spread out. This bending is known as diffraction. The diffraction of light can be observed in various situations, such as when light passes through a narrow slit or aperture or when it reflects on a thin film of oil on water or off the surfaces of a soap bubble....

Refraction of Light

Refraction in wave optics is the change in direction and phase velocity of a wave due to a change in the medium it is passing through. The most common way to observe this phenomenon is when a wave passes from one medium to another at any angle....

Reflection of Light

Reflection in wave optics is the change in the direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns to the medium from which it originated. This phenomenon is observed in various waves, such as light, sound, and water waves....

Polarization of Light

Polarization is a property of waves that describes the orientation of the oscillations of the wave. In the case of light waves, polarization refers to the direction of the electric field vector of the wave....

Wave Theory Frequently Asked Questions

What is Principle of Wave Optics?...