Light Propagation at Soft Interface
Light Propagation at Soft Interface
This Demonstration shows how light is reflected when it propagates through a "soft", transparent interface where the refractive index varies continuously. You can vary this thickness, . The blue area represents the medium's refractive index, from completely transparent in a vacuum to dark blue for . You can also vary the initial and final refractive indices and . Light propagation is always normal to the interface; incident light comes from the left and propagates toward the right.
Δz
n=2.5
n
initial
n
final
On the vertical axis, the dimensionless amplitude of the light wave's electric field is plotted versus the position on the horizontal axis, which is measured in wavelengths. The larger the oscillations on the left, the greater the stratified medium's reflectance. This amplitude is obtained from the numerical solution of the nonlinear differential amplitude equation. No approximations are made regarding the interface abruptness, in contrast with Fresnel's results.