Two Prism Critical Angle Refractometry with Attenuating Media

Abstract

We present a concept that enables the determination of the complex refractive index of attenuating media from two critical angles, measured sequentially at two interfaces between a single sample and two different prisms. The proposed method is general in that it applies with s and p polarisation states, thus it is suited for the characterisation of isotropic as well as anisotropic media. Uncertainty analysis indicates that relative error in the determination of the real (imaginary) index can be less than 10−4 (in the order of 10%), respectively.

Keywords

• complex refractive index
• total internal reflection
• optical instruments