Encyclopedia > Evanescent waves

Article Content

Evanescent waves

In optics, evanescent waves are formed when sinusoidal waves[?] are (internally) reflected off an interface at an angle greater than the critical angle so that total internal reflection occurs.

"Evanescent" means "tending to vanish", which is appropriate because the intensity of evanescent waves decays exponentially (rather than sinusoidally) with distance from the interface at which they are formed.

Source: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/dcprieve/Evanescent%20waves.htm

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!

Featured Article

Sakhalin

... colony; but the southern part of the island was held by the Japanese until 1875, when they ceded it to Russia. By the Treaty of Portsmouth (U.S.A.) of 1905 the southern ...