Diffraction and Huygens sources

Thread starter gladius999
Start date May 11, 2010
Tags

Diffraction Huygens Sources

AI Thread Summary

Bending of waves occurs significantly when the aperture width approaches the wavelength of the wave, as this enhances diffraction effects. Huygen's principle suggests that each point on a wavefront acts as a source of secondary waves, leading to propagation at various angles. However, the intensity of diffraction diminishes with larger apertures, as the wavefronts become more uniform. The discussion highlights the relationship between aperture size and wavelength, emphasizing that diffraction is most pronounced under specific conditions. Understanding these principles is crucial for applications in optics and wave theory.

May 11, 2010

gladius999

Hello,

I'm pondering on why bending occurs most when the width of the aperture is close to the wavelength of the propagating wave. According to Huygen's principle, should'nt there be point sources around the edges of an aperture regardless of the width and thus the bending propagate to infinity at even the sharpest angles due to the semicircle of propagation of the point source?

Last edited: May 12, 2010

Science news on Phys.org

May 12, 2010

gladius999

Sorry was there any confusion in my post?

Thread 'A quartet of epi-illumination methods'

Well, it took almost 20 years (!!!), but I finally obtained a set of epi-phase microscope objectives (Zeiss). The principles of epi-phase contrast is nearly identical to transillumination phase contrast, but the phase ring is a 1/8 wave retarder rather than a 1/4 wave retarder (because with epi-illumination, the light passes through the ring twice). This method was popular only for a very short period of time before epi-DIC (differential interference contrast) became widely available. So...

View full post »

Thread 'Effective absorption coefficient of gold nanoparticles'

I am currently undertaking a research internship where I am modelling the heating of silicon wafers with a 515 nm femtosecond laser. In order to increase the absorption of the laser into the oxide layer on top of the wafer it was suggested we use gold nanoparticles. I was tasked with modelling the optical properties of a 5nm gold nanoparticle, in particular the absorption cross section, using COMSOL Multiphysics. My model seems to be getting correct values for the absorption coefficient and...

View full post »

Thread 'The focal length of the eye and image inversion'

After my surgery this year, gas remained in my eye for a while. The light air bubbles appeared to sink to the bottom, and I realized that the brain was processing the information to invert the up/down/left/right image transferred to the retina. I have a question about optics and ophthalmology. Does the inversion of the image transferred to the retina depend on the position of the intraocular focal point of the lens of the eye? For example, in people with farsightedness, the focal point is...

View full post »