6.3.

Refraction of light
• Refraction is the change in direction of travel of a light
beam as the light crosses the boundary between one
transparent medium and another.

• This bending of a light beam as it crosses a surface is a

very important effect in optics: it is the basic principle
behind the working of cameras and telescopes, for
example.
• Refraction of light is the bending of a light ray as it
passes from one medium to another.
• It occurs because light travels at slightly different
velocities in different media.
• The incoming ray is called the incident ray.
• After bending in a new medium it becomes the
refracted ray.
• A line perpendicular to the boundary of the two
media at the point where the incident ray entries is
called the normal.
• When the ray enters a denser medium, the refracted
ray is bent towards the normal.
A few consequences of refraction
The path of the light as it enters the eye is what
determines where the object appears to be.
• If we look up at the night sky, a similar situation means
that no star is really where it appears to be unless it
happens to be directly overhead. This is due to
refraction in the atmosphere.

• Figure shows a simple model of the Earth’s atmosphere

which we can use.
• At each boundary the light goes into denser air and each
time it gets refracted towards the normal.
The refractive index and Snell’s law
• Refractive index is a measure of the extent to which a
medium refracts light.
The greater the refractive index, the more the light is bent.
Snell’s law:
Whenever light crosses a boundary between two
transparent media, the sines of the angles on each side of
the boundary bear a constant ratio to each other.
If the speed of light in a vacuum is denoted by c and its
(slower) speed in the medium is v, then the refractive index
n of the medium will be given by:
EXERCISE
1. Find the refractive index of a material where the angle of
incidence is 56° and the angle of refraction is 34°.

2. The units of index of refraction are:

A. m/s B. s/m C. radian D. none of these
3. The diagram shows the passage of a ray of light from air
into a substance X. The index of refraction of X is:
A. 0.53 B. 0.88 C. 1.9 D. 2.2
4.

A. 190 B. 220 C. 360 D. 420

Lateral displacement the perpendicular distance
between the pathway of the incident light ray and the
one that emerges after refraction from two surfaces of a
medium.
• Because the two opposite faces of the block are parallel, by
geometry the light must meet the second face at the same angle,
θ2, (see Figure b).
• This means that as the light leaves the glass it is refracted by the
same amount the other way, and so must emerge on a path
parallel to its original one as shown in Figure b.
• The sideways shift of the beam is called the lateral displacement.
• The extent of the lateral displacement
depends on the angle at which the light is
incident on the outer surface of the glass
block.
• At an angle of incidence of 0° (that is, when it
hits the block at right angles to its surface)
the lateral displacement is of course nil.
• As the angle of incidence increases, so does
the displacement.
Apparent depth
 The following Figure shows a small object ‘O’ under
water.
 If it is a light bulb, it is giving off its own light; if it is
the tip of a fish’s tail, the light is being reflected off it.
 Light within the cone drawn in the diagram ends up
in your eye.
 Be sure you understand that the refraction as shown
is correct: light coming out from the water will be bent
away from the normal.

Figure shows The light, which starts from ‘O’, enters the eye as if it was
spreading out from ‘I’.
• Combining the two in a single diagram, and showing
only the edges of the cone of light, we get the
following Figure. What is really there is the object at
‘O’.
• What we see is the image at ‘I’, and this appears to
be nearer the surface.
• Notice that the lines from the surface to point ‘I’ are
shown dotted.
• This is because no light takes that part of the path:
they are just construction lines to pinpoint where the
image appears to be.

Figure shows the apparent depth of the image ‘I’ is less than the real depth
of the object ‘O’.
• It is possible to calculate just how marked this effect
will be, and relate it to the refractive index n of the
liquid.
• The relationship between apparent and real depths is
given by:

 This is not a definition of refractive index, merely a

way of predicting what the apparent depth will be.
 Total internal reflection
Total internal reflection occurs when light strikes a
medium boundary at an angle of incidence greater than
the critical angle, and all light is reflected.

Critical angle the angle of incidence on a boundary above which total

internal reflection occurs.

 At a particular angle of incidence (marked c) the

light emerges along the surface.
What will happen if you shine the light at a greater angle
of incidence than this?
Total internal reflection will occur if:
1. Light travelling in a medium such as water or
glass comes to a surface with a medium in
which it travels faster (usually air).

2. It hits the inside of this surface at an angle of

incidence greater than the critical angle.

The critical angle is defined as:

the particular angle of incidence for which the
light emerges along the surface (at an angle of
refraction of 90°).
EXERCISE

1
.

2. What is the critical angle for total internal reflection

to occur when the refractive index of the material is
1.52 and the angle of incidence is 32°?
Total internal reflection and the use of fibre optics
 Fibre optics is the use of thin flexible fibres of
glass or other transparent solids to transmit
light signals, for Telecommunication or for
internal inspection of the body.

• Once introduced into one end, the light cannot escape

so long as it always hits the side walls of the rod at an
angle of incidence greater than the critical angle for
the material of the rod.
• The light is trapped in what seems like a kind of pipe
with silvered walls, as shown in Figure.
Applications of fibre optics
An endoscope is a device used by doctors to see inside
the body. It consists of two bundles of plastic fibres
which can be passed down the throat, for example, to
view the stomach. One bundle takes the light down to
illuminate the area, while the other takes the reflected
light back to construct the image.

Telecommunication companies can use light waves to

convey messages and information in much the same
way as they use radio waves.

Nowadays, in some places, a single cheap fibre optic

cable has replaced several telephone wires. The
material of the fibres has been made fantastically
transparent, so the light can be detected at the far end
of a cable as much as 20 km long.
 Fibre optics can also be used to produce decorative
lighting such as this lamp.
Lenses
 A lens is a piece of transparent medium, usually glass,
bounded by two curved surfaces or by one plane and
one curved surface.
• They are used inside cameras, eye glasses, projectors,
microscopes, telescopes and others.

Types of Lenses
There are two types of lenses. These are:
1. Convex lens
2. Concave lens
1. Convex Lenses
• These lenses are thicker at the middle and thinner at the edges.
Convex lenses are also called converging lenses.
• A convex lens makes parallel rays of light originating from a source
converge to a point called a Focus.
• It produces both real and virtual images.
• The virtual images are magnified but the real images can be either
magnified or diminished depending on the object's distance from
the lens.
2. Concave Lenses
• These lenses are thinner at the middle and thicker at the edges. A
concave lens is also called diverging lens.
• A concave lens makes parallel rays of light which pass through it
spread out or diverge.
• When you look through a concave lens, you always see a
diminished and upright image.
Terms used in lenses
1. The principal axis of a lens is an imaginary line joining the centers of curvature
of its surfaces.
2. For every lens there is a point through which rays of light pass without being
bent by the lens. This point is called the optical center of the lens.
3. The principal Focus (F) of a converging lens is the point to which all rays parallel
to the principal axis actually converge after refraction through the lens.
4. The principal focus (F) of a diverging lens is the point from which all rays parallel
to the principal axis appear to diverge after refraction though the lens.
5. The focal length (f) is the distance between the optical center (O) and the
principal focus (F) of the lens
6. Center of curvature (C): the center of curvature of a lens surface is the center of
the sphere of which the surface forms a part.

b) Convex lens
Ray diagrams used to determine nature and position of images in
lenses.
As in the construction of ray diagrams for curved mirrors, three rays
are used to obtain the position and nature of images formed by
lenses.
These rays are:
a) Rays parallel to the principal axis to it, pass through the principal
focus after refraction.
b) Rays through the principal focus emerge parallel to the principal
axis after refraction
c) Rays through the optical center pass through the lens not bent,
i.e. their direction is unchanged.
Formation of images by a convex lens
Images formed by a concave Lens
For all position of the object, the image formed by a
concave lens is always virtual, erect, diminished and located
between the principal focus ‘F’ and the optical center of the
lens ‘O’. Figure shows the path taken by a ray travelling
parallel with the principal axis and one passing though the
optical center ‘O’ of the lens. These rays can be used to
predict the image position.
The power of a lens
An alternative way to measure the strength of a lens, used
by opticians, is to specify its power p.
Magnification
Whenever we refer to magnification we mean linear magnification,
defined as the height of the image divided by the height of the
object.
The thin lens formula
The formula that you met in the last section with curved mirrors also
applies to lenses.

• To represent a concave lens, we give the focal length a negative

value.
• In a calculation, if the image distances works out to be negative,
that tells us that the image is not a real one but a virtual one.
EXERCISE
1. An object is 30 cm in front of a converging lens of focal length 10
cm. The image is:
A. real and larger than the object
B. real and the same size than the object
C. real and smaller than the object
D. virtual and the same size than the object

2. The object-lens distance for a certain converging lens is 400 mm.

The image is three times the size of the object. To make the image
five times the size of the object, the object-lens distance must be
changed to:
A. 360 mm B. 540 mm C. 600 mm D. 720 mm
3. An erect object is 2f in front of a converging lens of focal length f.
The image is:
A. real, inverted, magnified
B. real, erect, same size
C. real, inverted, same size
D. virtual, inverted, reduced
How an image is formed due to combination of thin lenses
• In a combination of thin lenses you achieve a second stage of
magnification by looking at the image not directly but through a
second lens.
• The intermediate image must therefore lie inside the focus Fe of
the second lens.
• Unfortunately the two rays whose progress we have followed so
far are not ‘special’ ones for the second lens – they will be
refracted through it and help to form the virtual final image
which we see, but their path is not predictable.
• Therefore we have had to add some construction lines (shown in
blue) to see where the image would be produced, and then
draw the rays emerging from the second lens spreading out
from there.
Objective lens first lens encountered by incoming light rays from the
object.
Eyepiece lens lens nearest to the eye.
The simple microscope
A simple microscope is a magnifying glass. If the object lies
between the focus of the lens and the lens itself, the light comes
out diverging, as shown in Figure

No real image will be formed: wherever you put a screen, you cannot
recreate on it an image of the original point of light.
As you move the screen back from the lens, all you can get is an ever-
widening circle of light.
If you place your eye as shown, however, you should see something: a
virtual image. Light enters the eye as if it was coming from the point I,
located somewhere behind the lens and further away than the object
really is.
• The image you see is the right way up and enlarged, as shown in
the following Figure.

• The formed image is: Virtual ,the right way up and enlarged.
If we trace the progress of the two ‘predictable’ rays, this time they
emerge from the lens still spreading out.
No real image will be produced, but if you put your eye as shown in
Figure, you will be able to see a virtual image located back behind the
lens at I.

The image you see is upright, enlarged and further back than the
object.
The telescope
A telescope is designed for seeing more detail in an object that is a
long distance away.

The image produced by the objective is smaller than the original

object.
• The eye lens that we use to look at that image needs to be a strong
one, as with the microscope.
• If we set it so the final image is offered to us back at infinity, that
means having the intermediate image at its focus.
• Therefore the total length of the telescope will be the focal length
of the objective, fo (which will be large), added to the focal length
of the eye lens, fe.
The camera
If the lens and screen in Figure 6.69 are enclosed in a light-tight box,
you have a camera.
For distant objects a small upside-down picture of the outside world
will be cast on the film, which really just consists of light sensitive
chemicals mounted in the focal plane of the lens.
In a digital camera, the film is replaced by an image capture surface
that converts the image into a computer file.
• If the object being photographed comes in much closer, then the
distance from the lens to the film must increase slightly.
• With most modern cameras this is done by rotating the lens: a
screw thread then winds it a small distance backwards or forwards.
CLASS WORK
An object is 20 cm to the left of a lens of focal length +10 cm. A
second lens, of focal length +12.5 cm, is 30 cm to the right of the first
lens. What is the distance between the original object and the final
image?
The human eye
• The human eye (see the following Figure ), works rather like that
of the camera, where a converging lens forms a tiny upside-down
image of the distant world on a screen.
• The lens in the eye is not a glass one, of course, but is made of
living tissue. The screen on which the image is cast is not a white
board; instead, it is the back surface of the eyeball (called the
retina).
• Retina light-sensitive cells lining the inner surface of the eye.
• optic nerve a nerve transmitting visual information from the retina
to the brain.
• The bulge at the front of the eyeball is the transparent window
(the cornea) by which the light enters.
• The amount of light reaching the retina is controlled by a ring
called the iris – usually brown or blue. It is the iris that determines
the colour of your eyes.
• The size of the hole in the middle of the iris (the pupil) adjusts
itself as the brightness of the light changes.
• In bright light the pupil is just a dot, while at night the iris opens
right up to leave a large pupil.
• The lens in the eye is surrounded by a circular sheet of muscle,
which divides the eyeball into two quite separate regions.
• The eye is filled with liquid, which gives rigidity to the whole
structure.
• The liquid in the front compartment is salty, rather like tears, while
the space between the lens and the retina contains a thicker, less
runny liquid.
• Tear drops themselves are produced by glands in the sockets into
which the eyeballs fit, and act as a lubricant for the outside
surface of your eyes.
How the eye focuses
• You can look at close-up objects or distant ones. Unless you require
spectacles, the image in both cases is clearly focused on the retina.
• The eye’s ability to focus on objects at varying distances is called
accommodation. It is the ring of muscles around the lens that
enables the eye to accommodate.

The lens changing shape to focus light from objects at differing

distances.
Defects of the eye and their correction with lenses
The first three defects in vision described below all involve
the lens in the eye. The fourth one is due to the shape of
the cornea.
1. Short sight (myopia). This happens if the lens is too
strong for the eye or, looked at another way, the
eyeball is too long for the lens.
2 Long sight (hypermetropia). This time the lens is too
weak. The parallel light from distant objects would not be
focused by the relaxed lens until past the retina, but they
can still be seen clearly by causing the lens to bulge – thus
using up some of the available accommodation already.
4 Astigmatism. This problem arises if a person’s cornea has a different
curvature in the horizontal plane from that in the vertical plane. This
results in two slightly different powers.
Vertical lines in the field of view may be sharply focused, for instance,
while horizontal lines are a bit blurred.
The remedy is a pair of spectacles fitted with cylindrical lenses, whose
surfaces are each part of a cylinder rather than a sphere (see Figure ).
These increase the power of the eye in one plane, to bring it up to the
power in the other plane.
Diffraction of light
Diffraction of light (or any type of wave) is a change in direction that
happens as the waves move through or round obstacles.
You can see this effect with water waves if you place an obstacle in a
tank of water and cause waves of different wavelengths to go through
the obstacle.
Explaining the dispersion of white light to produce a spectrum
• White light has a range of wavelengths, from blue to red.
• A range of wavelengths will produce a range of speeds.
• The amount of refraction is related to speed and so the different
wavelengths in white light are refracted by different amounts to
produce a spectrum, as shown in Figure.
• The rays are deviated by the prism.