Total Internal Reflection

When light travels from an optically dense (low speed) medium to a less dense (higher dense)
medium, such as glass to air, it deviates away from the normal.

For small angles of incidence most of the light will be refracted out of the glass block. As the
incidence angle is increased, refracted ray will deviate further away from the normal until it is
eventually at 90 to the normal. For even larger angles of incidence, no light will be able to
leave the glass, and Total Internal Refection takes place.

Critical angle
The critical angle, C, is the angle of incidence for which total internal reflection Just takes place,
i.e.it is the angle that leads to the light being refracted by exactly 90
Applying Snells law in this situation, we get

1
Sin C=
2
Sin 90
Sin C=

If the second medium is air, then
2
is approximately

1

so Sin C=

Example-
The refractive index of glass is 1.5 and that of water is 1.33.Calculate the critical angle for light
passing from
1. Glass to air
2. Glass to water
3. Glass to water

Applications of total internal reflection
1. Reflections from silvered glass mirrors occur at both faces, producing a blurred image
which is unsuitable for precision optical instruments. For reflections on binoculars,
reflex cameras and the laser beam splitters of CD players, the inner surfaces of 45
prisms are used.
2. In the food industry the sugar concentrations of liquids can be measured from the
refractive index of the solutions
3. Used in fibre optics.Glass fibre as thin as human hair have a core surrounded by a
cladding of lower refractive index. This ensures that light passing through the core will
be totally internally reflected as long as it impinges on the core-cladding boundary at
an angle greater than the critical angle











Example 2
A ray of light directed at the midpoint of a semicircular glass block. The angle of incidence is
adjusted until TIR takes place. The critical angle is measured to be 41
Block is now placed onto a glass slide, with a layer of sugar solution between the block and the
slide. The critical angle is now 67.Calculate
a) The refractive index of the glass
b) The refractive index of the sugar solution


Polarisation

Light is caused by osscilations of electric and magnetic fileds.
In unpolarised light,these oscillations occur in all directions that are perpendicular to
the direction of propogation.
In plane polarised light the oscillations takes place only in a single direction that is
perpendicular to the direction of propogation
Plane polarised light is also called linearly propogated light



Longitudinal waves such as sound cannot be polarized as it only travels to the direction of
propagation




A polarizing filter contains long chains of organic molecules aligned parallel to each other
If polarized light is passed through a polarizer (analyser),polarized light emerges and brightens
depending on the plane of polarization.The plane of polarization depend on the orientation of
the filter





























Brightness of the light emerging through the 2
nd
filter





0 90 120 270 360
Applications of polarization.
1 Polaroid sunglasses reduce glare from water surface by cutting the horizontally
polarized light.( This is mainly due to polarization from reflection)





Polarisation due to reflection.


When light falling at an angle onto a transparent material will undergo reflection and
refraction at a particular angle of incidence (depends on the refractive index).the
reflected light will be completely plane polarized in the plane of reflecting surface













2 Optical activity
Optically active substances such as sugar solutions rotate the plane of polarization by an
amount proportional to their concentration and the depth of the liquid through which
the light travels
This technique is used to measure the concentration of sugar solution










Working
With distilled
water in the
container, the
analyser is
rotated until its transmission axis is at right angles to that of the polarizer, thus
blocking out the light.
A sugar solution is then placed in the container. Because the solution rotates the
the plane of polarization, light will again be able to emerge.
The degree of rotation of the plane of polarization is measured by adjusting the
analyser until the light disappear once more