Wave optics

Wave optics describes light using wave behavior, explaining phenomena such as interference, diffraction, and polarization that ray optics cannot fully account for.

Huygens–Fresnel principle: A construction in which each point on a wavefront emits secondary wavelets whose interference forms the next wavefront. It gives a wave-based account of how light propagates and bends around obstacles.
Electromagnetic wave: A propagating disturbance of electric and magnetic fields that transports energy through space. Visible light is an electromagnetic wave, not a vibration of a material medium.
Michelson interferometer: An interferometer that splits a light beam into two paths and recombines them to measure optical path differences. Its fringes turn tiny path changes into measurable shifts.
Thomas Young: An English polymath whose double-slit experiment demonstrated interference in light. His experiment made wave interference a decisive explanation of optical patterns.
Geometrical optics: The study of light using rays, with reflection and refraction described by geometrical laws. It is the simpler approximation that wave optics extends when diffraction matters.
Superposition principle: The rule that overlapping waves combine by adding their displacements or fields. Adding optical fields explains the bright and dark patterns produced by interference.
Wavelength: The distance between successive points in the same phase of a periodic wave. Wavelength sets the scale for optical interference and diffraction.
Fabry–Pérot interferometer: An optical resonator formed by two parallel reflecting surfaces that produces sharp transmission resonances. Repeated wave interference between its mirrors selects narrow ranges of wavelength.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel: A French physicist who developed a mathematical wave theory of diffraction and interference. His analysis made wave optics quantitatively predictive.
Quantum optics: The study of light as a quantum field and its interactions with matter. It incorporates phenomena such as single-photon detection that classical wave optics cannot explain.

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