Raindrop caustics
Experiment no.: 11.3.2
A Petri dish filled with water and myrrh tincture serves as a model of a raindrop. If laser light is transmitted through the artificial raindrop, the beam path within the raindrop can be seen.
Caution: Experiment with class 3R laser and possible eye damage!
Do not look into the laser beam!
Caution: Experiment with class 3R laser and possible eye damage!
Do not look into the laser beam!
Images for this experiment
Documents for this experiment
Deflection of light in a raindrop
Formation of caustics
Dispersion at inner rainbow
Dispersion at outer rainbow
Plane wave front
Spherical wave
Superposition of spherical waves
Calculation the interference
Intensity as a function of the angle
Diffraction at slit
Huygens' principle and law of reflection
Huygens' principle and law of refraction
Fermat's principle and law of refraction
Refraction and total internal reflection
Optical path 1
Optical path 2