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ART. 150 - On the Remarkable Phenomenon of Crystalline Reflexion described by Prof. Stokes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2011

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Summary

The phenomenon in question is that exhibited by certain crystals of chlorate of potash, consisting of a peculiar internal coloured reflexion. The following, stated very briefly, are its leading features as described by Stokes:—

  1. (1) If one of the crystalline plates be turned round in its own plane, without alteration of the angle of incidence, the peculiar reflexion vanishes twice in a revolution, viz. when the plane of incidence coincides with the plane of symmetry of the crystal.

  2. (2) As the angle of incidence is increased, the reflected light becomes brighter and rises in refrangibility.

  3. (3) The colours are not due to absorption, the transmitted light being strictly complementary to the reflected.

  4. (4) The coloured light is not polarized. It is produced indifferently whether the incident light be common light or light polarized in any plane, and is seen whether the reflected light be viewed directly or through a Nicol's prism turned in any way.

  5. (5) The spectrum of the reflected light is frequently found to consist almost entirely of a comparatively narrow band. When the angle of incidence is increased, the band moves in the direction of increasing refrangibility, and at the same time increases rapidly in width. In many cases the reflexion appears to be almost total.

Prof. Stokes has proved that the seat of the colour is a narrow layer, about a thousandth of an inch in thickness, in the interior of the crystal; and he gives reasons for regarding this layer as a twin stratum.

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Scientific Papers , pp. 204 - 212
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1902

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