Sparkling of Diamond


 
 
Concept Explanation
 

Sparkling of Diamond

Diamond sparkles due to the total internal reflection coupled with large refractive index of diamond. Total internal reflection occurs when a light ray travels from denser (higher refractive index)to the rarer medium(lower refractive index)  and the angle of incidence is more than critical angle which brings back light back in the same medium. Critical angle is the angle at which angle of refraction of refracted ray becomes 90^{circ}.

Diamond has a very high refractive index. The critical angle for diamond is only  24° because the refractive index of diamond is 2.42. So, many rays trying to cross the diamond-air interface are incident at angles greater than the critical angle. The faces of the diamond are cut in such a way that most rays inside the diamond undergo total internal reflection. For example, most rays entering from the top of a properly cut diamond undergo multiple total internal reflections and emerge from the top face. After many such reflections, the colors in the light are seprated , and seen individually.But if we take a similarly cut piece of glass, a large number of  incident rays emerge on the other side of the glass. Thus, the diamond sparkles in comparison, because the eye receives much more light from the diamond than it does from the glass.

 

 
 
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