5.3 - Refraction

Why waves refract - The change in speed

• A wave refracts because it changes speed when crossing into a different material.
• If the wave meets the boundary at an angle, this change in speed makes it change direction.
• The bigger the change in speed, the more the wave bends.

Wavefront explanation

1. When a line of wavefronts hits a boundary at an angle and slows down, the end that crosses first slows down before the other end.
2. That end travels a shorter distance in the same time, so the wavefront swings round and changes direction.
3. The wavefronts also get closer together, showing that wavelength has decreased.

Frequency stays the same, so wavelength changes

When a wave crosses a boundary, its frequency does not change. From the wave equation ($v=f\lambda$), if speed $v$ changes while frequency $f$ is constant, the wavelength $\lambda$ must change:

• If the wave slows down, its wavelength decreases.
• If the wave speeds up, its wavelength increases.

Optical density

• Optical density is a measure of how quickly light travels through a material - the higher the optical density, the slower light travels.
• Light slows down and bends towards the normal when entering a more optically dense material.

A prism splits white light into a spectrum

• White light is a mixture of all the colours in the visible spectrum, each with a different wavelength.
• Different wavelengths refract by different amounts, so a triangular prism separates white light into a spectrum. This is called dispersion.

Why the colours disperse

• All colours travel at the same speed in air, but travel at different speeds in glass.
• Violet slows down the most and refracts the most.
• Red slows down the least and refracts the least.
• Because the sides of a triangular prism are not parallel, the colours spread out further as they leave rather than recombining.

Light of a single frequency (one colour) is called monochromatic.