Two beams of light start together and then hit a slab of two different kinds of
ID: 1403497 • Letter: T
Question
Two beams of light start together and then hit a slab of two different kinds of material. This will cause one of the beams to get "ahead" of the other; that is, one will emerge from the slab sooner than the other. The beams have a wavelength of 590 nm outside the slabs, and the slab is d = 1.90 microns thick. If the top half of the slab has index of refraction 1.79 and the bottom has index 1.35, by what time interval will one of the beams be ahead of the other once they've gone through the slab?
People actually do use this kind of technique to very accurately control the relative positions of light pulses in devices and experiments.
Explanation / Answer
v2/v1 = n1/n2 = 1.326
time fraction is inversely proportional to velocity
t1/t2 = v2/v1 = 1.326