In optics, an optical medium is material through which light and other electromagnetic waves propagate. It is a form of transmission medium. The permittivity and permeability of the medium define how electromagnetic waves propagate in it.
The optical medium has an intrinsic impedance, given by
where and are the electric field and magnetic field, respectively.
In a region with no electrical conductivity, the expression simplifies to:
For example, in free space the intrinsic impedance is called the characteristic impedance of vacuum, denoted Z0, and
Waves propagate through a medium with velocity , where is the frequency and is the wavelength of the electromagnetic waves. This equation also may be put in the form
where is the angular frequency of the wave and is the wavenumber of the wave. In electrical engineering, the symbol , called the phase constant, is often used instead of .
The propagation velocity of electromagnetic waves in free space, an idealized standard reference state (like absolute zero for temperature), is conventionally denoted by c0:
where is the electric constant and is the magnetic constant.
For a general introduction, see Serway For a discussion of synthetic media, see Joannopoulus.
Homogeneous medium vs. heterogeneous medium
Transparent medium vs.
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Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shielding material, glass, etc. An opaque object is neither transparent (allowing all light to pass through) nor translucent (allowing some light to pass through). When light strikes an interface between two substances, in general some may be reflected, some absorbed, some scattered, and the rest transmitted (also see refraction).
The electromagnetic wave equation is a second-order partial differential equation that describes the propagation of electromagnetic waves through a medium or in a vacuum. It is a three-dimensional form of the wave equation. The homogeneous form of the equation, written in terms of either the electric field E or the magnetic field B, takes the form: where is the speed of light (i.e. phase velocity) in a medium with permeability μ, and permittivity ε, and ∇2 is the Laplace operator.
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