Huygens–Fresnel principle
Article
The Huygens–Fresnel principle is a method for describing wave propagation. It treats every point on an existing wavefront as a source of secondary wavelets whose combined effect forms the later wavefront.
Christiaan Huygens introduced the wavefront construction, and Augustin-Jean Fresnel extended it by including interference among the secondary waves. The resulting approach explains diffraction as well as ordinary propagation.
The contribution from each point depends on distance, phase, and direction. Adding these contributions produces regions of constructive and destructive interference.
The principle is widely used in physical optics to analyse apertures, edges, lenses, diffraction patterns, and the transition between near-field and far-field wave behaviour.
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- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens–Fresnel_principle