Total internal reflection in detail


 

Total internal reflection.



When a ray of light travelling in denser medium enters into a rarer medium, it bends away from the normal. If the angle of incident increases, the angle of refraction incidence, the angle of refraction also increases. For a particular value of the angle of incidence, the angle of reflection becomes 90 degree. The angle of incidence that causes the refracted ray in the rarer medium is bend through 90 degree is called critical angle. When the angle of incidence becomes larger than the critical angle, no refraction occurs. The entries light are reflected back into the denser medium. This is known as total internal reflection of light.

Applications of total internal reflection

·       Total internal reflecting prism: many optical instruments use right- angled prism to reflect a beam of light through 90 degree or 180 degree, such as camera, binoculars, periscope and telescope. One of the angles of right- angled prism is 90 degree. When a ray of light strikes a face of prism perpendicularly, it enters the prism without a deviation and strikes the hypotenuse at an angle of 45 degree. Since the angle of incidence45 degree is greater than critical angle of glass which is 42 degree, the light totally reflected by the prism through the angle of 90 degree. Two such prisms are used in periscope. The light is totally reflected by angle of 180 degree. Two such prisms are used in binoculars.

·       Optical fibers: total internal reflection is used in fiber optics which has number of advantages in telecommunication field. Fiber o [optics consist of hair size threads of glass or plastic through which light can travel. The inner part of the fibre optics is called core that carries the light and an outer concentric shell is called cladding. The core is made of glass or plastic of relatively high index of refraction. The cladding is made of glass or plastic but of relatively low strikes the core- cladding boundary at the angle of incidence greater then critical angle and is reflected back into the core. In this way light travels many kilometers with small loss of energy.

In Pakistan optical fibres were used in telephone and advanced telecommunication systems. Now we can listen thousands of phone calls without any disturbance.

·       Light pipes: light pipe is a bundle of thousands of optical fibres bounded together. They are used to illuminate the inaccessible places by the doctor and engineers. For example, doctors view inside the human body. They can also be used to transmit images from one place to another.

·       Endoscope: an endoscope is a medical instrument used for exploratory diagnostics, and surgical purposes. An endoscope is used to explore the interior organs of the body. Due to its small size, it can be inserted through the mouth and thus eliminates the invasive surgery. The endoscope used to examine the cyst scope and bronchoscope respectively. An endoscope uses two fabric- optics tubes through a pipe. A medical procedure using any type of endoscope is called endoscopy.

·       Doctors can see the image of organs in the screen monitors through the help of camera at the end of fabric- optics.

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