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Snell's Law:
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Snell's Law describes the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction when light passes through different media. It's fundamental in optics for determining how light bends at the interface between two materials with different refractive indices.
The calculator uses Snell's Law:
Where:
Explanation: The refractive index quantifies how much light bends when entering a material. A higher refractive index means light bends more.
Details: Calculating refractive index is crucial in lens design, fiber optics, spectroscopy, and understanding how light interacts with different materials in various optical applications.
Tips: Enter both angles in degrees. Values must be between 0 and 90 degrees. The angle of refraction should be less than the angle of incidence for typical cases where light enters a denser medium.
Q1: What is the range of typical refractive indices?
A: Most materials have refractive indices between 1.0 (vacuum) and 2.4 (diamond). Air is approximately 1.0003, water is 1.33, and glass ranges from 1.5 to 1.9.
Q2: Why do we use angles in degrees rather than radians?
A: Degrees are more intuitive for most users in practical applications. The calculator automatically converts to radians for the trigonometric calculations.
Q3: What happens at the critical angle?
A: When the angle of refraction reaches 90 degrees, total internal reflection occurs. This is the critical angle, beyond which no refraction happens.
Q4: Does temperature affect refractive index?
A: Yes, refractive index typically decreases with increasing temperature for most materials due to decreased density.
Q5: Can this formula be used for all materials?
A: Snell's Law applies to isotropic materials where light propagation is the same in all directions. Some crystalline materials have different refractive indices along different axes.