"In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another."
Study of the bending of light as it passes from one medium into another with a different refractive index.
Geometrical optics: The branch of optics that deals with the behavior of light rays, including reflection, refraction, and image formation.
Optical materials: The materials that affect the refraction and reflection of light waves, such as glass, plastics, and crystals.
Snell's law: The law that describes how light waves are refracted when passing through different mediums, based on the angles of incidence and refraction.
Prism: A triangular or polygonal solid shape that can be used for the dispersion or refraction of light waves.
Lens: A transparent object that refracts light in a specific way, and can be used to focus or diverge light waves.
Aberrations: Imperfections in lenses that cause distortions in images, such as chromatic aberration and spherical aberration.
Thin lenses: Lenses with small thickness relative to their radii of curvature that can be analyzed with simplified equations.
Optical systems: Collections of lenses and other optical elements that are used to create specific imaging or other light manipulation effects.
Optical design: The process of designing optical systems to achieve specific performance and functional goals.
Optical instruments: Devices that use optics to measure or analyze various physical parameters, such as telescopes, microscopes, and spectrometers.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT): A medical imaging technique that uses low coherence light to create high-resolution images of biological tissues.
Refractive index: The measure of how much a material bends light waves relative to a vacuum.
Total internal reflection: A phenomenon that occurs when a light wave is trapped inside a medium because it is completely reflected at the boundary with another medium with lower refractive index.
Optical fibers: Thin strands of glass or plastic that can transmit light waves over long distances without significant loss of light.
Polarization: A property of light waves that describes the orientation of their electric field vectors, which can affect their behavior when passing through some optical materials.
Dispersion: The phenomenon that causes different wavelengths of light to be refracted at different angles, resulting in the splitting of white light into its component colors.
Spherical lens: A lens that has a curved surface and is shaped like a section of a sphere. It can converge or diverge light depending on its curvature and refractive index.
Aspherical lens: A lens that is not spherical in shape and is designed to minimize aberrations such as distortion, astigmatism, and spherical aberration.
Cylindrical lens: A lens that has a curved surface in one direction and a flat surface in the other direction. It is used to correct astigmatism and has different optical powers in different meridians.
Fresnel lens: A lens that is made up of a series of concentric circular ridges on one surface, which reduces its thickness and weight compared to a regular lens of the same optical power.
Doublet lens: A lens made up of two individual lenses that are cemented together and designed to correct chromatic aberration, spherical aberration, and coma.
Triplet lens: A lens consisting of three individual lenses that are cemented together and designed to correct for chromatic aberration, spherical aberration, and coma.
Achromatic lens: A lens made up of two different materials with different refractive indices and designed to reduce chromatic aberration.
Apochromatic lens: A lens made up of three different materials with different refractive indices and designed to reduce chromatic aberration even further than an achromatic lens.
Diffractive lens: A lens that uses diffraction instead of refraction to focus light, and is used in some applications where refractive lenses may not work well.
Plano-convex lens: A lens that is flat on one side and curved on the other, and converges light.
Plano-concave lens: A lens that is flat on one side and curved on the other, and diverges light.
Convex-concave lens: A lens that has one surface that is convex and another surface that is concave, and may converge or diverge light depending on the relative curvatures of the surfaces.
Meniscus lens: A lens that has one convex and one concave surface, and is designed to minimize aberrations and reduce the overall thickness of the lens.
Gradient index lens: A lens that has a refractive index that changes continuously from the center to the edge of the lens, and can correct for some aberrations while allowing for a thinner lens.
Micro lens array: A collection of very small lenses arranged in a regular pattern, used for a variety of applications such as imaging, diffraction, and signal processing.
Hollow lens: A lens that has a hollow cavity inside, which can be filled with a material to adjust its optical properties.
Axicon lens: A conical lens that has a special shape designed to create a ring-shaped focal spot instead of a point source.
Photonic crystals: A type of structure that can manipulate the flow of light in ways that conventional lenses cannot, and are used in some advanced optical devices.
"The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium."
"Other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction."
"How much a wave is refracted is determined by the change in wave speed and the initial direction of wave propagation relative to the direction of change in speed."
"For light, refraction follows Snell's law, which states that, for a given pair of media, the ratio of the sines of the angle of incidence and angle of refraction is equal to the ratio of phase velocities in the two media, or equivalently, to the refractive indices of the two media."
"Optical prisms and lenses use refraction to redirect light."
"The human eye also utilizes refraction for vision."
"The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength of light, and thus the angle of the refraction also varies correspondingly."
"This is called dispersion and causes prisms and rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors."
"The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength of light, and thus the angle of the refraction also varies correspondingly."
"The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium."
"No, other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction."
"How much a wave is refracted is determined by the change in wave speed and the initial direction of wave propagation relative to the direction of change in speed."
"The ratio of the sines of the angle of incidence and angle of refraction is equal to the ratio of phase velocities in the two media."
"The ratio of refractive indices of the two media can be used interchangeably with the ratio of phase velocities in the two media."
"Optical prisms use refraction to redirect light."
"This is called dispersion."
"The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength of light."
"Dispersion causes prisms and rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors."
"The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium."