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Applications of Total Internal Reflection

Total internal reflection occurs when light travels from an optically dense medium to a less dense one and the angle of incidence is greater than the critical angle. This phenomenon is used to explain the sparkling of diamonds and mirages. Optical fibers also use total internal reflection to transmit light signals by having a high refractive index core surrounded by a lower index cladding layer. Totally reflecting prisms can deviate or invert light rays through total internal reflection inside the prism.

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Abdur Rahman
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50% found this document useful (2 votes)
6K views2 pages

Applications of Total Internal Reflection

Total internal reflection occurs when light travels from an optically dense medium to a less dense one and the angle of incidence is greater than the critical angle. This phenomenon is used to explain the sparkling of diamonds and mirages. Optical fibers also use total internal reflection to transmit light signals by having a high refractive index core surrounded by a lower index cladding layer. Totally reflecting prisms can deviate or invert light rays through total internal reflection inside the prism.

Uploaded by

Abdur Rahman
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Applications of Total Internal Reflection (T.I.R.

):

The phenomenon of T.I.R. can be used to explain some effects observed in daily life and also it
finds use in some optical devices as explained below:

1. Sparkling of diamond.
The brilliance of diamond is due to total internal reflection. As the refractive index of diamond is
very large, hence its critical angle is very small (  24 ) . The faces of diamond are so cut that the light
entering the crystal suffers T.I.R repeatedly, and hence gets collected inside but it comes out through
only a few faces. Hence the diamond sparkles when seen in the direction of emerging light.
2. Mirage.
It is an optical illusion observed in deserts or over hot extended surfaces like a coal-tarred road, due
to which a traveller sees a shimmering pond of water some distance ahead of him and in which the
surrounding objects like trees, clouds etc., appear inverted.

Explanation:
On a hot summer day, the surface of earth
becomes very hot. The layers of air near the earth
are more heated than the higher ones. Hence the
density and refractive index of air layers increase
as we move high up.
As the rays of light from a
distant object (like a tree) travel towards the earth
through layers of decreasing refractive index, they
bend more and more away from the normal.
Here, a stage is reached when the angle of
incidence becomes greater than the critical angle,
the rays are totally reflected. These rays move up
through layers of increasing refractive index, they Fig. Formation of mirage
bend more and more towards the normal.
These rays observer’s eyes (as shown) and he sees an inverted image of the object,
as if formed in a pond of water.
3. Optical fibres.
It is a hair-thin long strand of quality glass or quartz surrounded by a glass coating of slightly lower
refractive index.
 It is used as a guided medium for transmitting an optical signal from one place to another.
Construction:
An optical fibre consists of three main parts:
(i) Core: The central cylindrical is made of high quality
glass/silica/plastic of refractive index 1 and has a
diameter about 10 to 100  m .
(ii) Cladding: The core is surrounded by a glass/plastic
jacket of refractive index 2  1 .
In a typical optical fibre, the refractive
indices of core and cladding may be 1.52 and 1.48
Fig. Optical fibre structure
respectively.
(iii) Buffer coating: For providing safety and strength, the core cladding of optical fibres is enclosed in
plastic jacket. This is called buffer coating.

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Propagation of light through an optical fibre:
As shown in fig., when alight is incident on one end of the fibre at
a small angle, it goes inside and suffers repeated total internal
reflections because the angle of incidence is greater than the critical
angle of the fibre material with respect to its outer coating.
As there is negligible loss of intensity in total internal
reflection, hence the outcoming beam is of as much intensity as the
incident beam. Even if the fibre is bent, light easily travels through the
fibre. Fig. Propagation of light-
-through an optical fibre
 A bundle of optical fibres is called a light pipe.
A single fibre cannot be used to see the complete image of an
object. But, if the image is broken into a large number of fine
dots and each portion of the image is seen through a separate
fibre, the complete image can be seen. A light pipe can be used
to transmit such an image accurately.

Applications of optical fibres:


Some of the important applications are as below:
(i). As a light pipe, optical fibres are used in medical and optical
Fig. A light pipe.
examination.
A light pipe is inserted into the stomach through the mouth. Light transmitted through
the outer layers of the light pipe is scattered by the various parts of stomach into the central portion of
the light pipe to produce a final image with excellent details. This technique is called endoscopy.
(ii). They are used in transmitting and receiving electrical signals in telecommunication.
The electrical signals are first converted to light by suitable transducers.
4. Totally reflecting prisms.
A right angled isosceles prism, i.e., a 45  90  45 prism, is called a totally reflecting prism.
 Whenever a light ray falls normally on any face of such a prism, it is incident on the inside face at

45 i.e.,  ic of glass (about 42 )  ; hence this ray is always totally internally reflected.
Uses of these prisms
These prisms may be used in three ways:
(I). To deviate a ray through 90 . (II). To invert an image with deviation of rays through 180 .

(III). To invert an image without deviation of rays. (Erecting Prism).

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