Everything about Law Of Reflection totally explained
Specular reflection is the perfect,
mirror-like
reflection of light (or sometimes other kinds of
wave) from a surface, in which light from a single incoming direction (a ray) is reflected into a single outgoing direction. Such behavior is described by the
law of reflection, which states that the direction of incoming light (the incident ray), and the direction of outgoing light reflected (the reflected ray) make the same angle with respect to the
surface normal, thus
the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection; this is commonly stated as
.
This is in contrast to
diffuse reflection, where incoming light is reflected in a broad range of directions. The most familiar example of the distinction between specular and diffuse reflection would be
glossy and
matte paints. While both exhibit a combination of specular and diffuse reflection, matte paints have a higher proportion of diffuse reflection and glossy paints have a greater proportion of specular reflection. Very highly polished surfaces, such as high quality mirrors, can exhibit almost perfect specular reflection.
Even when a surface exhibits only specular reflection with no diffuse reflection, not all of the light is necessarily reflected. Some of the light may be
absorbed by the materials. Additionally, depending on the type of material behind the surface, some of the light may be transmitted through the surface. For most interfaces between materials, the fraction of the light that's reflected increases with increasing angle of incidence
. If the light is propagating in a material with a higher
index of refraction than the material whose surface it strikes, then
total internal reflection may occur (if the angle of incidence is greater than a certain critical angle). Specular reflection from a
dielectric such as water can affect
polarization and at
Brewster's angle reflected light is completely linearly polarized parallel to the interface.
The law of reflection arises from
diffraction of a plane wave (with small
wavelength) on a flat boundary: when the boundary size is much larger than the wavelength then electrons of the boundary are seen oscillating exactly in phase only from one direction—the specular direction. If a mirror becomes very small (comparable to the wavelength), the law of reflection no longer holds and the behaviour of light is more complicated.
Usually, the term specular reflection refers to
visible light; however the term is also widely used for other
electromagnetic waves. The specular reflection of non-electromagnetic waves follows basically the same laws. Acoustical mirrors—and even
atomic mirrors—exist which provide the specular reflection of neutral
atoms. For the efficient reflection of atoms from a
solid-state mirror, very cold atoms and/or
grazing incidence are used in order to provide significant
quantum reflection;
ridged mirrors are used to enhance the specular reflection of atoms.
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