Refraction of Light

Refraction is the bending of a wave when it enters a medium where it's speed is different. The
refraction of light when it passes from a fast medium to a slow medium bends the light ray
toward the normal to the boundary between the two media. The amount of bending depends on
the indices of refraction of the two media and is described quantitatively by Snell's Law.
Refraction is responsible for image formation by lenses and the eye.
As the speed of light is reduced in the slower medium, the wavelength is shortened
proportionately. The frequency is unchanged; it is a characteristic of the source of the light and
unaffected by medium changes.

If the incident medium has the larger index of refraction, then the angle with the normal is
increased by refraction. The larger index medium is commonly called the "internal" medium,
since air with n=1 is usually the surrounding or "external" medium. You can calculate the
condition for total internal reflection by setting the refracted angle = 90 and calculating the
incident angle. Since you can't refract the light by more than 90, all of it will reflect for angles of
incidence greater than the angle which gives refraction at 90.
Snell's law (also known as the SnellDescartes law and the law of refraction) is
a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when
referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two
different isotropic media, such as water, glass and air.
Refraction of light at the interface between two media of different refractive indices, with n2 > n1.
Since the velocity is lower in the second medium (v2 < v1), the angle of refraction 2 is less than

Index of Refraction
The index of refraction is defined as the speed of light in vacuum divided by the speed of light in
the medium.
The indices of refraction of some common substances are given below with a more complete
description of the indices for optical glasses given elsewhere. The values given are approximate
and do not account for the small variation of index with light wavelength which is
called dispersion.
Material
Vacuum
Air
Water
Carbon disulfide
Methylene iodide
Diamond

n
1.000
1.000277
4/3
1.63
1.74
2.417

Material
Ethyl alcohol
Glycerine
Ice
Polystyrene
Crown glass
Flint glass

n
1.362
1.473
1.31
1.59
1.50-1.62
1.57-1.75

the angle of incidence 1; that is, the ray in the higher-index medium is closer to the normal.
In optics, the law is used in ray tracing to compute the angles of incidence or refraction, and in
experimental optics and gemology to find the refractive index of a material. The law is also
satisfied in metamaterials, which allow light to be bent "backward" at a negative angle of
refraction with a negative refractive index.
Although named after Dutch astronomer Willebrord Snellius (15801626), the law was first
accurately described by the scientist Ibn Sahl at Baghdadcourt, when in 984 he used the law to
derive lens shapes that focus light with no geometric aberrations in the manuscript On Burning
Mirrors and Lenses (984).[1][2]
Snell's law states that the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction is equivalent
to the ratio of phase velocities in the two media, or equivalent to the reciprocal of the ratio of the
indices of refraction:

Snell's Law
Snell's Law relates the indices of refraction n of the two media to the directions of propagation in
terms of the angles to the normal. Snell's law can be derived from Fermat's Principle or from the
Fresnel Equations.

with each
as the angle measured from the normal of the boundary,
as the velocity of
light in the respective medium (SI units are meters per second, or m/s) and
as the
refractive index (which is unitless) of the respective medium.
The law follows from Fermat's principle of least time, which in turn follows from the
propagation of light as waves.