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Question 153 of 199

Q.State and explain Brewster's law.

Tamil Nadu DgeTamil Nadu HSC (DGE) Board 2017Subjective· 5mImportance★★★★★
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Brewster's law gives the angle of incidence at which reflected light becomes completely polarized, and shows that this polarizing angle is related to the refractive index by n=tan⁡θBn=\tan\theta_B, with the reflected and refracted rays perpendicular to each other at that angle.

Statement of Brewster's law

When a beam of unpolarised (ordinary) light is incident on the surface of a transparent refracting medium (such as glass) at a particular angle of incidence, called the polarizing angle or Brewster's angle θB\theta_B, the light reflected from the surface is completely (linearly) polarized, with its electric field vibrations confined to a plane perpendicular to the plane of incidence. Brewster's law states that the tangent of this polarizing angle equals the refractive index of the medium:

n=tan⁡θBn=\tan\theta_B

Explanation and the perpendicularity condition

At the Brewster angle, it is found experimentally (and can be shown using Snell's law) that the reflected ray and the refracted ray are exactly perpendicular to each other, i.e.

θB+θr=90∘\theta_B+\theta_r=90^\circ

where θr\theta_r is the angle of refraction. Using Snell's law, n=sin⁡θBsin⁡θrn=\dfrac{\sin\theta_B}{\sin\theta_r}, and substituting θr=90∘−θB\theta_r=90^\circ-\theta_B:

n=sin⁡θBsin⁡(90∘−θB)=sin⁡θBcos⁡θB=tan⁡θBn=\frac{\sin\theta_B}{\sin(90^\circ-\theta_B)}=\frac{\sin\theta_B}{\cos\theta_B}=\tan\theta_B

which is exactly Brewster's law.

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