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ERIC Number: EJ1115434
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Oct
Pages: 4
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0031-921X
EISSN: N/A
Specular Reflection from Rough Surfaces Revisited
Yasuda, Kensei; Kim, Alvin; Cho, Hayley; Timofejev, Timofej; Walecki, Wojciech J.; Klep, James; Edelson, Amy S.; Walecki, Abigail S.; Walecki, Eve S.; Walecki, Peter S.
Physics Teacher, v54 n7 p394-397 Oct 2016
In his beautiful paper, Hasan Fakhruddin reported observations of mirror-like reflections in the rough surface of a ground glass plate. Similar effects have been recently employed for metrology of the roughness of optical diffusers used in modern light emitting device illumination systems. We report the observations of specular reflection in nontransparent rough surfaces at oblique angles, where roughness was treated as a variable. We present a simple trigonometry-based model explaining the observed phenomenon, which we experimentally validated using aluminum surfaces that have controlled roughness. The reported demonstration requires no special equipment, other than cellphone cameras, dielectric or metal plate, and sandpaper, and serves as an introduction to wave optics. This activity can be used to get further insight into everyday applications of wave optics for students already familiar with wave optics fundamentals.
American Association of Physics Teachers. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740. Tel: 301-209-3300; Fax: 301-209-0845; e-mail: pubs@aapt.org; Web site: http://scitation.aip.org/tpt
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Guides - Classroom - Teacher; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A