Timeline for How come an anti-reflective coating makes glass *more* transparent?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
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| Jul 13, 2011 at 3:45 | comment | added | Omega Centauri | I think the gist of the contradiction of intuition, is that the sign of the reflected wave depends upon whether one is entering a denser/less dense (higher index of refraction) medium. So the wave that is reflected back down from the surface of the film (this was the primary reflection off the glass), constructively interferes with the downgoing refracted wave. So the amplitude within the film can actually be greater than expected by simply thinking about intensities rather than phases. | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 23:17 | comment | added | David Z | I think you could say the idea of multiple separate waves canceling out is an abstract construct. That's basically the view I try to explain in my answer, although it winds up being rather confusing unless you have some intuition about how solutions to the wave equation behave. | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 19:49 | comment | added | Omega Centauri | Waldir. I think you just have to solve the wave equation for the problem in question. What must be conserved is the net energy flux, upwards minus downwards. We know since less is going up, more must be going down, but the details depend upon the amplitude and phases of the various waves. There will be a total of five waves to match up: down and up in air, down and up in film, and down in glass. | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 18:37 | comment | added | waldyrious | ok, this sounds logical, but on the other hand it's rather counter-intuitive :/ are these reflected waves real (in a physical sense) or just an abstract construct due to the theoretical description of this phenomenon? I mean, they don't seem to be anything measurable... I don't know, this concept just seems rather strange to me. | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 18:28 | history | answered | ptomato | CC BY-SA 3.0 |