Interference, Diffraction, and Polarization

A phenomenon which occurs when two waves meet, collide, or intersect while traveling along the same medium. It it interaction of waves at point of crossing

Wave Interference

Type of interference where the crest of one wave meets the crest of a wave, they will interfere in such a manner as to produce a “super-crest”, or “super trough” when trough interfere to one another. The wave are IN PHASE

Constructive Interference

Type of interference of a crest with trough and has the tendency to decrease resulting amount of displacement of the medium. The waves are OUT OF PHASE

Destructive Interference

When two waves interfere, the resulting displacement of the medium at any locations is the algebraic sum of the displacements of the individual waves at the same location

Superposition Principle

Who proposed the Superposition Principle?

Thomas Young 1801

When both constructive and destructive patterns occur, it is called ____

Rouge waves

Two waves sets merging together result in combined wave heights

Constructive Interference

Two waves sets off phase result in cancelling out wave heights

Destructive Interference

When you see colors, colors in soap bubbles, colors produced by anti-reflective coatings of lenses are the evidences of the type of ______

Constructive Interference

The apparent bending of waves around small obstacles and the spreading out of waves past small openings

Diffraction

A bright region in the center, together with a series of concentric rings of decreasing intensity around it and it is discovered by George Airy

Airy Disk

Hologram on credit card, rainbow pattern on CD or DVD is an example of _____

Diffraction

An optical component with a regular pattern which splits light into several beams traveling in different directions. The directions of these beams depend on the spacing of the grating and the wavelength of the light so that the grating acts as a dispersive element. They are commonly used in monochromator and spectrometers

Diffraction Grating

The process of transforming unpolarized light into polarized light

Polarization

It is the type of polarization where the light wave that is vibrating in more than one plane

Unpolarized Light

It is the type of polarization where the light wave in which the vibrations occur in a single plane

Polarized Light

The 4 methods of polarization

Transmission, reflection, refraction, scattering

One of the method in polarization where the polaroid filter is used in which it is capable of blocking one of the two planes of vibration of an electromagnetic wave

Transmission

One of the method in polarization when a beam of ordinary light is reflected from the surface of transparent medium like glass or water. The degree of polarization varies with angle of incidence

Reflection

One of the method in polarization when the path of the beam changes its direction.

Refraction

One of the method in polarization when the light is seen in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the incidence, it is found to be plane polarized.

Scattering