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Sunday, January 7, 2018

Phase Shift, No Normal

There's nothing wrong with Snell's Law,


This diagram is constructed by touching a particle of radius λi on a medium boundary, with a ray AO through its center that intersect the boundary at point O.  The particle shrinks to size λr at the point of contact C.  The line through its center to point O is the new wave front.

Consider CO,

λitan(θi)=OC=λrtan(θr)

λiλr=1tan(θi)tan(θr)

λiλr=cos(θi)cos(θr)sin(θi)sin(θr)

or

λiλr=cos(θiθr)+cos(θiθr)cos(θiθr)cos(θiθr)

The right diagram should be,


What happens on one wave front happens on the next and the two green triangles on the right shares the same hypotenuse but are displaced.

OC=OC=2λisin(θi)=2λrsin(θr)

and so,

λiλr=sin(θi)sin(θr)

The particle collapse to a smaller radius at the contact point.  The wave fronts are disjointed and so are the incident and refracted rays.  The is no normal that meets both incident and refracted rays, as the wave fronts are not continuous.

A discontinuous wave front suggests a phase change with refraction.


Centers of the particles are at a and a

oa=λicos(θi)

so,

of=oaλisin(θi)

cf=ocof=λitan(θi)λicos(θi)λisin(θi)

cf=λi(tan(θi)1cos(θi)1sin(θi))=λi[tan(θi)2cosec(2θi)+cosec(θi)]

Similarly the distance from the contact point c to where the wave front meets the boundary at f is,

cf=λrtan(θr)λrcos(θr)λrsin(θr)

cf=λr(tan(θr)1cos(θr)1sin(θr))=λr[tan(θr)2cosec(2θr)+cosec(θr)]

and since between two consecutive wave fronts along the medium boundary is a phase difference of 2π, so the phase difference between the incident and refracted wave is,

P=cf+cfOR2π=cf+cf2λi2πsin(θi)=cf+cfλisin(θi)π

or

P=cf+cfλrsin(θr)π

And we have the phase difference after refraction!