Many materials have a well-characterized refractive index, but these indices depend strongly upon the wavelength of light. Therefore, any numeric value for the index is meaningless unless the associated wavelength is specified. The wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern. ... Look up Vacuum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... General Name, Symbol, Number helium, He, 2 Chemical series noble gases Group, Period, Block 18, 1, s Appearance colorless Atomic mass 4. ... Layers of Atmosphere (NOAA) Air redirects here. ... In chemistry and other sciences, STP or standard temperature and pressure is a standard set of conditions for experimental measurements, to enable comparisons to be made between sets of data. ... Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. ... Impact of a drop of water. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Impact of a drop of water. ... The cryolite Ivgtut, Greenland, summer 1940 Cryolite (Na3AlF6, sodium hexafluoroaluminate. ... This article is about the chemical compound. ... Teflon® is polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a polymer of fluorinated ethylene. ... Glycerol, also well known as glycerin and glycerine, and less commonly as propane-1,2,3-triol, 1,2,3-propanetriol, 1,2,3-trihydroxypropane, glyceritol, and glycyl alcohol is a colorless, odorless, hygroscopic, and sweet-tasting viscous liquid. ... Structure of methyl methacrylate, the monomer that makes up PMMA Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) or poly(methyl 2-methylpropenoate) is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. ... Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, NaCl, commonly known as rock salt. ... Crown glass is a type of optical glass used in lenses. ... A magnified crystal of a salt (halite/sodium chloride) In chemistry, a salt is any ionic compound composed of positively charged cations and negatively charged anions so that the product is neutral and without a net charge. ... Polycarbonates are a particular group of thermoplastics. ... Flint glass is an optical glass that has relatively high refractive index and low Abbe number. ... Glass can be made transparent and flat, or into other shapes and colors as shown in this ball from the Verrerie of Brehat in Brittany. ... General Name, Symbol, Number bromine, Br, 35 Chemical series halogens Group, Period, Block 17, 4, p Appearance gas/liquid: red-brown solid: metallic luster Atomic mass 79. ... Glass can be made transparent and flat, or into other shapes and colors as shown in this ball from the Verrerie of Brehat in Brittany. ... A round brilliant-cut cubic zirconia Cubic zirconia (or CZ) is zirconium oxide (ZrO2), a mineral that is extremely rare in nature but is widely synthesized for use as a diamond simulant. ... // This article is about the gemstone. ... Silicon carbide (SiC) is a ceramic compound of silicon and carbon. ... Cinnabar, sometimes written cinnabarite, is a name applied to red mercury(II) sulfide (HgS), or native vermilion, the common ore of mercury. ... Mercury Sulfide is a chemical compound composed of the elements Mercury and Sulfur. ... Gallium phosphide (GaP), a phosphide of gallium, is a compound semiconductor material with an indirect band gap of 2. ... This article is about the chemical compound. ... General Name, Symbol, Number silicon, Si, 14 Chemical series metalloids Group, Period, Block 14, 3, p Appearance dark gray, bluish tinge Atomic mass 28. ... The refractive index (or index of refraction) of a material is the factor by which the phase velocity of electromagnetic radiation is slowed in that material, relative to its velocity in a vacuum. ... The wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern. ...

There are also weaker dependencies on temperature, pressure/stress, et cetera, as well on precise material compositions (presence of dopants et cetera); for many materials and typical conditions, however, these variations are at the percent level or less. Thus, it is especially important to cite the source for an index measurement if precision is required. In thermodynamics, temperature is the physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold —something that is hotter has the greater temperature. ... The use of water pressure - the Captain Cook Memorial Jet in Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra. ... Figure 1  Stress tensor A mature tree trunk may support a greater force than a fine steel wire but intuitively we feel that steel is stronger than wood. ... A dopant, also called doping agent and dope, is an impurity element added to a semiconductor lattice in low concentrations in order to alter the optical/electrical properties of the semiconductor. ...

In general, an index of refraction is a complex number with both a real and imaginary part, where the latter indicates the strength of absorption loss at a particular wavelength—thus, the imaginary part is sometimes called the extinction coefficient k. Such losses become particularly significant, for example, in metals at short (e.g. visible) wavelengths, and must be included in any description of the refractive index. In mathematics, a complex number is a number of the form where a and b are real numbers, and i is the imaginary unit, with the property i 2 = −1. ... The parameter used to describe the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter is the complex index of refraction, ñ, which is a combination of a real part and an imaginary part. ... The refractive index (or index of refraction) of a material is the factor by which the phase velocity of electromagnetic radiation is slowed in that material, relative to its velocity in a vacuum. ...

See also

• Sellmeier equation

A plot of the refractive index vs. ...

External links

• International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam
• Filmetrics Corporation of San Diego, California, 2002
• Ioffe institute, Russian Federation
• Crystran, United Kingdom
• Jena University, Germany
• Hyperphysics list of refractive indices
• Luxpop: Index of refraction values and photonics calculations