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The refractive index (or index of refraction) of a medium is a measure for how much the speed of light (or other waves such as sound waves) is reduced inside the medium. For example, typical glass has a refractive index of 1.5, which means that light travels at times the speed in air or vacuum. Two common properties of glass and other transparent materials are directly related to their refractive index. First, light rays change direction when they cross the interface from air to the material, an effect that is used in lenses and glasses. Second, light reflects partially from surfaces that have a different refractive index than their surroundings.
The refractive index of a medium is defined as the ratio of the phase velocity of a wave phenomenon such as light or sound in a reference medium to the velocity in the medium itself. It is most commonly used in the context of light with vacuum as a reference medium, although historically other reference media (e.g. air at a standardized pressure and temperature) have been common. It is usually given the symbol n. In the case of light, it equals
where εr is the material's relative permittivity, and μr is its relative permeability. For most materials, μr is very close to 1 at optical frequencies, therefore n is approximately . Contrary to a widespread misconception, n may be less than 1. This has practical technical applications, such as effective mirrors for x-rays based on total internal reflection.
The phase velocity is defined as the rate at which the crests of the waveform propagate; that is, the rate at which the phase of the waveform is moving. The group velocity is the rate that the envelope of the waveform is propagating; that is, the rate of variation of the amplitude of the waveform. Provided the waveform is not distorted significantly during propagation, it is the group velocity that represents the rate that information (and energy) may be transmitted by the wave, for example the velocity at which a pulse of light travels down an optical fiber.
The speed of lightEdit
The speed of all electromagnetic radiation in vacuum is the same, approximately 3×108 meters per second, and is denoted by c. Therefore, if v is the phase velocity of radiation of a specific frequency in a specific material, the refractive index is given by
This number is typically greater than one: the higher the index of the material, the more the light is slowed down. However, at certain frequencies (e.g. near absorption resonances, and for X-rays), n will actually be smaller than one. This does not contradict the theory of relativity, which holds that no information-carrying signal can ever propagate faster than c, because the phase velocity is not the same as the group velocity or the signal velocity.
Sometimes, a "group velocity refractive index", usually called the group index is defined:
where vg is the group velocity. This value should not be confused with n, which is always defined with respect to the phase velocity. The group index can be written in terms of the wavelength dependence of the refractive index as
where is the wavelength in vacuum. At the microscale, an electromagnetic wave's phase velocity is slowed in a material because the electric field creates a disturbance in the charges of each atom (primarily the electrons) proportional to the permittivity of the medium. The charges will, in general, oscillate slightly out of phase with respect to the driving electric field. The charges thus radiate their own electromagnetic wave that is at the same frequency but with a phase delay. The macroscopic sum of all such contributions in the material is a wave with the same frequency but shorter wavelength than the original, leading to a slowing of the wave's phase velocity. Most of the radiation from oscillating material charges will modify the incoming wave, changing its velocity. However, some net energy will be radiated in other directions (see scattering).
If the refractive indices of two materials are known for a given frequency, then one can compute the angle by which radiation of that frequency will be refracted as it moves from the first into the second material from Snell's law.
If in a given region the values of refractive indices n or ng were found to differ from unity (whether homogeniously, or isotropically, or not), then this region was distinct from vacuum in the above sense for lacking Poincaré symmetry.
Negative Refractive IndexEdit
Recent research has also demonstrated the existence of negative refractive index which can occur if the real parts of both and are simultaneously negative, although that is a sufficient but not necessary condition. Not thought to occur naturally, this can be achieved with so called metamaterials and offers the possibility of perfect lenses and other exotic phenomena such as a reversal of Snell's law. 
Dispersion and absorptionEdit
In real materials, the polarization does not respond instantaneously to an applied field. This causes dielectric loss, which can be expressed by a permittivity that is both complex and frequency dependent. Real materials are not perfect insulators either, i.e. they have non-zero direct current conductivity. Taking both aspects into consideration, we can define a complex index of refraction:
Here, n is the refractive index indicating the phase velocity as above, while κ is called the extinction coefficient, which indicates the amount of absorption loss when the electromagnetic wave propagates through the material. Both n and κ are dependent on the frequency (wavelength).
The effect that n varies with frequency (except in vacuum, where all frequencies travel at the same speed, c) is known as dispersion, and it is what causes a prism to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors, explains rainbows, and is the cause of chromatic aberration in lenses. In regions of the spectrum where the material does not absorb, the real part of the refractive index tends to increase with frequency. Near absorption peaks, the curve of the refractive index is a complex form given by the Kramers-Kronig relations, and can decrease with frequency.
Since the refractive index of a material varies with the frequency (and thus wavelength) of light, it is usual to specify the corresponding vacuum wavelength at which the refractive index is measured. Typically, this is done at various well-defined spectral emission lines; for example, nD is the refractive index at the Fraunhofer "D" line, the centre of the yellow sodium double emission at 589.29 nm wavelength.
The Sellmeier equation is an empirical formula that works well in describing dispersion, and Sellmeier coefficients are often quoted instead of the refractive index in tables. For some representative refractive indices at different wavelengths, see list of indices of refraction.
As shown above, dielectric loss and non-zero DC conductivity in materials cause absorption. Good dielectric materials such as glass have extremely low DC conductivity, and at low frequencies the dielectric loss is also negligible, resulting in almost no absorption (κ ≈ 0). However, at higher frequencies (such as visible light), dielectric loss may increase absorption significantly, reducing the material's transparency to these frequencies.
The real and imaginary parts of the complex refractive index are related through use of the Kramers-Kronig relations. For example, one can determine a material's full complex refractive index as a function of wavelength from an absorption spectrum of the material.
The refractive index of certain media may be different depending on the polarization and direction of propagation of the light through the medium. This is known as birefringence or anisotropy and is described by the field of crystal optics. In the most general case, the dielectric constant is a rank-2 tensor (a 3 by 3 matrix), which cannot simply be described by refractive indices except for polarizations along principal axes.
In magneto-optic (gyro-magnetic) and optically active materials, the principal axes are complex (corresponding to elliptical polarizations), and the dielectric tensor is complex-Hermitian (for lossless media); such materials break time-reversal symmetry and are used e.g. to construct Faraday isolators.
The strong electric field of high intensity light (such as output of a laser) may cause a medium's refractive index to vary as the light passes through it, giving rise to nonlinear optics. If the index varies quadratically with the field (linearly with the intensity), it is called the optical Kerr effect and causes phenomena such as self-focusing and self phase modulation. If the index varies linearly with the field (which is only possible in materials that do not possess inversion symmetry), it is known as the Pockels effect.
If the refractive index of a medium is not constant, but varies gradually with position, the material is known as a gradient-index medium and is described by gradient index optics. Light travelling through such a medium can be bent or focussed, and this effect can be exploited to produce lenses, some optical fibers and other devices. Some common mirages are caused by a spatially-varying refractive index of air.
Since refractive index is a fundamental physical property of a substance, it is often used to identify a particular substance, confirm its purity, or measure its concentration. Refractive index is used to measure solids (glasses and gemstones), liquids, and gases. Most commonly it is used to measure the concentration of a solute in an aqueous solution. A refractometer is the instrument used to measure refractive index. For a solution of sugar, the refractive index can be used to determine the sugar content (see Brix).
See also Edit
- List of refractive indices
- Optical properties of water and ice
- Sellmeier equation
- Total internal reflection
- Negative refractive index or Metamaterial
- Index-matching material
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