Snell's Law

1
Snell's Law

• The study of the refraction of light as it
  crosses from one material into a second material
  yields a general relationship between the sines
  of the angle of incidence and the angle of
  refraction.
• This general relationship is expressed by the
  following equation
• angle of incidence
• angle of refraction
• ni index of refraction of the incident medium
• nr index of refraction of the refractive medium

2
Index of Refraction Value (n)

• Index of refraction values (represented by the
  symbol n) are numerical index values which are
  expressed relative to the speed of light in a
  vacuum

3
Indices of Refraction
4
Example Problems

• In the following two examples, use Snell's law to
  complete the following diagrams

Given 45 degrees in Example A 60
degrees in Example B