Dispersion and polarization

In his 1666 experiment, shown in the figure, Newton discovered what is now called dispersion or dispersive refraction. He showed that a light beam is bent, or refracted, as it passes from one medium to another—e.g., from air into glass. The natures of the two media as well as the wavelength of the light involved determine the degree of refraction, with shorter wavelengths bending more than longer wavelengths. Dispersion in a faceted diamond produces coloured flashes of light, in drops of water in the atmosphere it produces primary and secondary rainbows, and in ice crystals in thin clouds it produces a variety of halos and arcs around the Sun and Moon.

Dispersion has its origin in absorption. Even a colourless, transparent substance, such as glass, absorbs electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet (derived from the unpairing of paired electrons and their further excitation) and in the infrared (from the vibrations of atoms, molecules, and larger structural units). It is a combination of these two effects that produces dispersion: only a vacuum has no absorptions and therefore no dispersion.

A rope can be snapped so that a wave movement travels from one end to the other; the motion of the wave can be from side to side, up and down, or in any direction perpendicular to the rope. Similarly, an unpolarized light wave travels in a single direction but vibrates in random directions perpendicular to its travel. When a light wave vibrates in only one direction, it is called polarized.

Light can be polarized in passing through certain substances (such as a crystal of calcium carbonate, the mineral calcite, or a sheet of polarizing film) that block out all waves except those vibrating in a particular direction. Polarized white light can interact with various doubly refracting materials (ones in which the index of refraction varies according to the direction in which the light waves passing through it vibrate) to produce colour. This technique is often used to view rocks or structural models; the colours produced are then studied to determine mineral composition or to analyze stress.

Scattering

When light strikes fine particles or an irregular surface, it is deflected in all directions and is said to be scattered. When the scattering particles are very small compared to the wavelength of light, the intensity of the scattered light is related to that of the incident light by the inverse fourth power of the wavelength (Rayleigh scattering). As a result, light at the blue end of the spectrum is scattered much more intensely than that at the red end.

The light from the Sun is scattered by dust particles and clusters of gas molecules, and the scattered blue rays seen against the dark background of outer space cause the sky to appear blue. At sunrise and sunset, when sunlight travels the farthest, almost all of the blue rays are scattered, and the light that reaches the Earth directly is seen as predominantly red or orange. Scattering also causes that epitome of rare occurrences, the blue Moon (seen when forest fires produce clouds composed of small droplets of organic compounds). Most blue and green bird feathers involve scattering, as do many animal and some vegetable blues. Scattering also produces the blue colour of eyes, particularly the intense blue eyes of most infants, whose yellow-to-dark-brown pigments such as melanin have not yet all been formed so that only blue is seen against the dark interior of the eye.

If the size of the scattering particles approaches the wavelength of light or exceeds it, the complex Mie scattering theory applies and explains colours other than blue; because white light contains all visible wavelengths, it is scattered at the largest sizes, as in fog and clouds.

Interference

Two light waves of the same wavelength can interact under appropriate circumstances so as to reinforce each other if they are in phase or to cancel each other if they are out of phase. If a beam of light falls on a thin film, such as an oil slick on a puddle of water, part of the beam is reflected from the front of the oil film and part from the back. Depending on the thickness of the film, the two reflected beams can reinforce or cancel.

When monochromatic light falls on a film of tapering thickness, a series of dark and light bands, known as interference fringes, is produced. With white light the sequence of overlapping light and dark bands from the spectral colours leads to Newton’s colours. The film appears black or gray where it is thinnest and the light waves cancel; as it becomes progressively thicker, it appears white, then yellow, orange, red, violet, blue, green, yellow, orange-red, violet, and so on. Newton’s colours can also be seen in cracks in glass or in crystals, in a soap bubble, and in antireflection coatings such as on camera lenses.

A large number of structural colorations in biological systems also derives from thin film interference. These structures usually feature multiple layers and are frequently backed by a dark layer of melanin, which intensifies the colour by absorbing the nonreflected light. Such colorations are usually iridescent; the colours appear metallic and change with orientation. Examples include pearl and mother-of-pearl, the transparent wings of houseflies and dragonflies, the scales on beetles and butterflies, and the feathers of hummingbirds and peacocks. The eyes of many nocturnal animals contain multilayer structures that improve night vision and can produce iridescent reflections in the dark.

Diffraction

Interference is also involved in diffraction, another phenomenon that produces colour. Diffraction is the term used to describe the spreading of light at the edges of an obstacle and the subsequent interference that occurs. When a monochromatic beam of light falls on a single edge, a sequence of light and dark bands is produced, and with white light a sequence of colours much like the Newton colour sequence appears (see photograph).

A diffraction grating consists of a regular two- or three-dimensional array of objects or openings that scatter light according to its wavelength over a wide range of angles. As these deflected waves interact, they reinforce one another in some directions to produce intense spectral colours. This effect can be seen by looking at a distant streetlight or flashlight through a black cloth umbrella. Diffraction arrays that reveal spectral colours in direct sunlight exist on the wings of some beetles and the skins of some snakes. Perhaps the most outstanding natural diffraction grating, however, is the gemstone opal. Electron microscope photographs reveal that an opal has a regular three-dimensional array of equal-size spheres, about 250 nm (0.00001 inch) in diameter, which produce the diffraction.