WAVE OPTICS
Wave optics is the branch of optics that studies interference, diffraction, polarization, and other phenomena which is cannot be described by ray optics.
In 1637, Descartes gave the corpuscular model of light and derived Snell’s law. It explains the laws of reflection and refraction.
The corpuscular model predicted that if the ray of light on refraction bends towards the normal i.e refraction from rarer to denser medium, then the speed of light would be greater in the denser medium.
Due to the further development of corpuscular theory by Isaac Newton, the corpuscular theory is very often attributed to Newton.
In 1687, the Dutch physicist Christian Huygens put forward the wave theory of light. It predicated that on refraction if the wave bends towards the normal then the speed of light would be less in the denser medium. Which is true and confirmed later by experiments ( Foucault carried out this experiment in 1850)
The wave theory was not readily accepted primarily because of Newton’s authority and also because, how could light travel through a vacuum.
However, when Thomas young performed his famous interference experiment in 1801, it was firmly established light is indeed a wave phenomenon. Due to the small wavelength of light, it travels in a straight path.
But the question is the same how could light wave propagate through a vacuum? This was explained by Maxwell when he put forward his famous Electromagnetic theory of light and say that light must be an electromagnetic wave with speed
| Introduction | Huygens Principle |
| Refraction and Reflection of Plane waves using Huygens Principle | Coherent and Incoherent Addition of Waves |
| Interference of Light Waves and Young’s Experiment | Diffraction |
| Polarisation | |