Open AccessPower of the Wave
Author(s) -
Flamm Daniel
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
photonicsviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2626-1308
pISSN - 2626-1294
DOI - 10.1002/phvs.201900021
Subject(s) - optics , focus (optics) , reflection (computer programming) , perspective (graphical) , geometrical optics , laser , power (physics) , physical optics , angle of incidence (optics) , physics , total internal reflection , point (geometry) , laser light , computer science , artificial intelligence , mathematics , geometry , quantum mechanics , programming language
Abstract The first thing that you learn in school about optics is that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. Only a while later we would discover that the whole light thing was a lot more complicated, but this seventh‐grade perspective on optics has proved to be sufficient for laser material processing for decades: Light is a ray, and a focus is a point at which converging rays unite. But meanwhile even in laser technonology we see that wave optics tell us far more.