Optical Path Length
In optics, optical path length (OPL) or optical distance is the product of the geometric length of the path light follows through the system, and the index of refraction of the medium through which it propagates. A difference in optical path length between two paths is often called the optical path difference (OPD). Optical path length is important because it determines the phase of the light and governs interference and diffraction of light as it propagates.
Read more about Optical Path Length: Optical Path Difference (OPD), Mathematical Derivation, Details
Famous quotes containing the words optical, path and/or length:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)