File:Snells law wavefronts.gif

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Titel

Summary

 
This diagram was created with MATLAB.
Description
English: Illustration of wavefronts in the context of Snell's law.
Date (UTC)
Source Own work, created with MATLAB. (Source code below.)
Author Oleg Alexandrov
Permission
(Reusing this file)
Public domain I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so:
I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.
Other versions

Source code

% Illustration of Snell's law
function main()

   % indexes of refraction
   n1=1.0;
   n2=1.5;

   sign = -1;% is the source up or down?
   O=[0, -1*sign];
   k=500;

   
% KSmrq's colors
   red    = [0.867 0.06 0.14];
   blue   = [0, 129, 205]/256;
   green  = [0, 200,  70]/256;
   yellow = [254, 194,   0]/256;
   white = 0.99*[1, 1, 1];
   black = [0, 0, 0];
   gray = 0.5*white;

   color1=red;
   color2=blue;
   color3=gray;
   lw = 3;
   
   plot_line=0;
   Theta=linspace(0, 2*pi, k);
   V=0*Theta; W=0*Theta;
   S0=7;
   spacing=0.45;
   p=floor(S0/spacing);
   S=linspace(0, S0, p+1);
   spacing=S(2)-S(1);
   
   num_frames = 10;
   for frame_iter=1:num_frames

      figure(1); clf; hold on; axis equal; axis off;

      % plot the interface between diellectrics
      L=1.2*S0;
      plot([-L, L], [0, 0], 'color', color3, 'linewidth', lw);
      
      
      % plot a ray
      plot_line=1;
      s=L;
      theta=pi/3; wfr(s, theta, n1, n2, O, sign, plot_line, color1, lw);

      % plot the wafefronts
      plot_line=0;
      for i=1:p

	 s=S(i)+spacing*(frame_iter-1)/num_frames;

	 for j=1:k
	    theta=Theta(j);
	    [V(j), W(j)]=wfr(s, theta, n1, n2, O, sign, plot_line, color1, lw);
	 end
	 plot(V, W, 'color', color2, 'linewidth', lw);
      end
      

      %  dummy points to enlarge the bounding box
      plot(0, S0+2.5*spacing, '*', 'color', white);
      plot(0, -(S0+2.5*spacing)/n2, '*', 'color', white);

      % to know where to crop later
      Lx=3.2; Ly=Lx; shift = 1;
      plot([-Lx, Lx, Lx, -Lx -Lx], ...
           [-Ly, -Ly, Ly, Ly, -Ly]+shift);

      file = sprintf('Frame%d.eps', 1000+frame_iter);
      disp(file);
      saveas(gcf, file, 'psc2')
   end
end

% Converted to gif with the UNIX command
% convert -density 100 -antialias Frame10* Snell_animation.gif 
% then cropped in Gimp

function [a, b]=wfr(s, theta, n1, n2, O, sign, plot_line, color1, lw);

   X=O+s*[sin(theta), sign*cos(theta)];

  if( sign*X(2) > 0 )
    t=-sign*O(2)/cos(theta);
    X0=O+t*[sin(theta), sign*cos(theta)];
    
    if (plot_line == 1) 
      plot([O(1), X0(1)], [O(2), X0(2)], 'color', color1, 'linewidth', lw, 'linestyle', '--');
    end

    d = norm(O-X0);
    r = (s-d)*(n2/n1)^(sign);

    theta2=asin(n1*sin(theta)/n2);
    XE=X0+r*[sin(theta2), sign*cos(theta2)];
  else
    XE = X;
  end  
  a = XE(1);
  b = XE(2); 

  if (plot_line==1)
    plot([X0(1), XE(1)], [X0(2), XE(2)], 'color', color1, 'linewidth', lw, 'linestyle', '--');
  end  
end

Captions

Wavefronts from a point source of light.In a particuler wavefront u will see that the dist btw source & wavefront above the line is > dist btw source & wavefront below the line beacuse lightspeed is greater in the above and lower in below.

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

File history

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Date/TimeDimensionsUserComment
current02:59, 5 July 2009225 × 227 (65 KB)Capmoreduced to 16 colors with no quality loss

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