Question

Explain the Huygens’ construction of plane wavefront.

OR

Using Huygens’ principle explain the propagation of a plane wavefront.

Answer 1

Huygens’ construction of plane wavefront:

i. A plane wavefront is formed when point of observation is very far away from the primary source.

ii. Let PQR represent a plane wavefront at any instant. According to Huygens’ principle, all the points on this wavefront will act as secondary sources of light sending out secondary wavelets in the forward direction.

iii. Draw hemispheres with P, Q, R…. as centres and ‘ct’ as radius. The surface tangential to all such hemispheres is P₁Q₁R₁…. at instant ‘t’. It is a new wavefront at time ‘t’.

iv. The plane wavefronts is propagated as plane waves in homogeneous isotropic medium. They are parallel to each other.

v. PP₁N₁, QQ₁N₂, RR₁N₃ are the wave normals at P, Q, R respectively. These wave normals show the direction of propagation of plane wavefront.

vi. The new wavefront P₁Q₁R₁ is parallel to primary wavefront PQR.