Dispersion (optics)

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This article is about dispersion of waves in optics. For other forms of dispersion, see Dispersion
(disambiguation).

In a prism, material dispersion (a wavelength-dependent refractive index) causes different colors

to refract at different angles, splitting white light into a rainbow.
A compact fluorescent lamp seen through an Amici prism

In optics, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its
frequency,[1] or alternatively when the group velocity depends on the frequency. Media having
such a property are termed dispersive media. Dispersion is sometimes called chromatic
dispersion to emphasize its wavelength-dependent nature, or group-velocity dispersion (GVD)
to emphasize the role of the group velocity.

The most familiar example of dispersion is probably a rainbow, in which dispersion causes the
spatial separation of a white light into components of different wavelengths (different colors).
However, dispersion also has an effect in many other circumstances: for example, GVD causes
pulses to spread in optical fibers, degrading signals over long distances; also, a cancellation
between group-velocity dispersion and nonlinear effects leads to soliton waves. Dispersion is
most often described for light waves, but it may occur for any kind of wave that interacts with a
medium or passes through an inhomogeneous geometry (e.g., a waveguide), such as sound
waves.

There are generally two sources of dispersion: material dispersion and waveguide dispersion.
Material dispersion comes from a frequency-dependent response of a material to waves. For
example, material dispersion leads to undesired chromatic aberration in a lens or the separation
of colors in a prism. Waveguide dispersion occurs when the speed of a wave in a waveguide
(such as an optical fiber) depends on its frequency for geometric reasons, independent of any
frequency dependence of the materials from which it is constructed. More generally,
"waveguide" dispersion can occur for waves propagating through any inhomogeneous structure
(e.g., a photonic crystal), whether or not the waves are confined to some region. In general, both
types of dispersion may be present, although they are not strictly additive. Their combination
leads to signal degradation in optical fibers for telecommunications, because the varying delay in
arrival time between different components of a signal "smears out" the signal in time.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Material dispersion in optics

• 2 Group and phase velocity
• 3 Dispersion in waveguides
• 4 Higher-order dispersion over broad bandwidths
• 5 Dispersion in gemology
• 6 Dispersion in imaging
• 7 Dispersion in pulsar timing
• 8 See also
• 9 References

• 10 External links

[edit] Material dispersion in optics

The variation of refractive index vs. vacuum wavelength for various glasses. The wavelengths of
visible light are shaded in red.
Influences of selected glass component additions on the mean dispersion of a specific base glass
(nF valid for λ = 486 nm (blue), nC valid for λ = 656 nm (red))[2]

Material dispersion can be a desirable or undesirable effect in optical applications. The

dispersion of light by glass prisms is used to construct spectrometers and spectroradiometers.
Holographic gratings are also used, as they allow more accurate discrimination of wavelengths.
However, in lenses, dispersion causes chromatic aberration, an undesired effect that may degrade
images in microscopes, telescopes and photographic objectives.

The phase velocity, v, of a wave in a given uniform medium is given by

where c is the speed of light in a vacuum and n is the refractive index of the medium.

In general, the refractive index is some function of the frequency f of the light, thus n = n(f), or
alternatively, with respect to the wave's wavelength n = n(λ). The wavelength dependence of a
material's refractive index is usually quantified by an empirical formula, the Cauchy or Sellmeier
equations.

Because of the Kramers–Kronig relations, the wavelength dependence of the real part of the
refractive index is related to the material absorption, described by the imaginary part of the
refractive index (also called the extinction coefficient). In particular, for non-magnetic materials
(μ = μ0), the susceptibility χ that appears in the Kramers–Kronig relations is the electric
susceptibility χe = n2 − 1.

The most commonly seen consequence of dispersion in optics is the separation of white light into
a color spectrum by a prism. From Snell's law it can be seen that the angle of refraction of light
in a prism depends on the refractive index of the prism material. Since that refractive index
varies with wavelength, it follows that the angle that the light is refracted by will also vary with
wavelength, causing an angular separation of the colors known as angular dispersion.
For visible light, most transparent materials (e.g., glasses) have:

or alternatively:

that is, refractive index n decreases with increasing wavelength λ. In this case, the medium is said
to have normal dispersion. Whereas, if the index increases with increasing wavelength the
medium has anomalous dispersion.

At the interface of such a material with air or vacuum (index of ~1), Snell's law predicts that
light incident at an angle θ to the normal will be refracted at an angle arcsin(sin(θ)/n). Thus, blue
light, with a higher refractive index, will be bent more strongly than red light, resulting in the
well-known rainbow pattern.

[edit] Group and phase velocity

Another consequence of dispersion manifests itself as a temporal effect. The formula v = c / n
calculates the phase velocity of a wave; this is the velocity at which the phase of any one
frequency component of the wave will propagate. This is not the same as the group velocity of
the wave, that is the rate at which changes in amplitude (known as the envelope of the wave) will
propagate. For a homogeneous medium, the group velocity vg is related to the phase velocity by
(here λ is the wavelength in vacuum, not in the medium):

The group velocity vg is often thought of as the velocity at which energy or information is
conveyed along the wave. In most cases this is true, and the group velocity can be thought of as
the signal velocity of the waveform. In some unusual circumstances, called cases of anomalous
dispersion, the rate of change of the index of refraction with respect to the wavelength changes
sign, in which case it is possible for the group velocity to exceed the speed of light (vg > c).
Anomalous dispersion occurs, for instance, where the wavelength of the light is close to an
absorption resonance of the medium. When the dispersion is anomalous, however, group
velocity is no longer an indicator of signal velocity. Instead, a signal travels at the speed of the
wavefront, which is c irrespective of the index of refraction.[3] Recently, it has become possible
to create gases in which the group velocity is not only larger than the speed of light, but even
negative. In these cases, a pulse can appear to exit a medium before it enters.[4] Even in these
cases, however, a signal travels at, or less than, the speed of light, as demonstrated by Stenner, et
al.[5]
The group velocity itself is usually a function of the wave's frequency. This results in group
velocity dispersion (GVD), which causes a short pulse of light to spread in time as a result of
different frequency components of the pulse travelling at different velocities. GVD is often
quantified as the group delay dispersion parameter (again, this formula is for a uniform medium
only):

If D is less than zero, the medium is said to have positive dispersion. If D is greater than zero, the
medium has negative dispersion. If a light pulse is propagated through a normally dispersive
medium, the result is the higher frequency components travel slower than the lower frequency
components. The pulse therefore becomes positively chirped, or up-chirped, increasing in
frequency with time. Conversely, if a pulse travels through an anomalously dispersive medium,
high frequency components travel faster than the lower ones, and the pulse becomes negatively
chirped, or down-chirped, decreasing in frequency with time.

The result of GVD, whether negative or positive, is ultimately temporal spreading of the pulse.
This makes dispersion management extremely important in optical communications systems
based on optical fiber, since if dispersion is too high, a group of pulses representing a bit-stream
will spread in time and merge together, rendering the bit-stream unintelligible. This limits the
length of fiber that a signal can be sent down without regeneration. One possible answer to this
problem is to send signals down the optical fibre at a wavelength where the GVD is zero (e.g.,
around 1.3–1.5 μm in silica fibres), so pulses at this wavelength suffer minimal spreading from
dispersion—in practice, however, this approach causes more problems than it solves because
zero GVD unacceptably amplifies other nonlinear effects (such as four wave mixing). Another
possible option is to use soliton pulses in the regime of anomalous dispersion, a form of optical
pulse which uses a nonlinear optical effect to self-maintain its shape—solitons have the practical
problem, however, that they require a certain power level to be maintained in the pulse for the
nonlinear effect to be of the correct strength. Instead, the solution that is currently used in
practice is to perform dispersion compensation, typically by matching the fiber with another fiber
of opposite-sign dispersion so that the dispersion effects cancel; such compensation is ultimately
limited by nonlinear effects such as self-phase modulation, which interact with dispersion to
make it very difficult to undo.

Dispersion control is also important in lasers that produce short pulses. The overall dispersion of
the optical resonator is a major factor in determining the duration of the pulses emitted by the
laser. A pair of prisms can be arranged to produce net negative dispersion, which can be used to
balance the usually positive dispersion of the laser medium. Diffraction gratings can also be used
to produce dispersive effects; these are often used in high-power laser amplifier systems.
Recently, an alternative to prisms and gratings has been developed: chirped mirrors. These
dielectric mirrors are coated so that different wavelengths have different penetration lengths, and
therefore different group delays. The coating layers can be tailored to achieve a net negative
dispersion.

[edit] Dispersion in waveguides

Optical fibers, which are used in telecommunications, are among the most abundant types of
waveguides. Dispersion in these fibers is one of the limiting factors that determine how much
data can be transported on a single fiber.

The transverse modes for waves confined laterally within a waveguide generally have different
speeds (and field patterns) depending upon their frequency (that is, on the relative size of the
wave, the wavelength) compared to the size of the waveguide.

In general, for a waveguide mode with an angular frequency ω(β) at a propagation constant β (so
that the electromagnetic fields in the propagation direction (z) oscillate proportional to ei(βz − ωt)),
the group-velocity dispersion parameter D is defined as:[6]

where λ = 2πc / ω is the vacuum wavelength and vg = dω / dβ is the group velocity. This
formula generalizes the one in the previous section for homogeneous media, and includes both
waveguide dispersion and material dispersion. The reason for defining the dispersion in this way
is that |D| is the (asymptotic) temporal pulse spreading Δt per unit bandwidth Δλ per unit
distance travelled, commonly reported in ps / nm km for optical fibers.

A similar effect due to a somewhat different phenomenon is modal dispersion, caused by a

waveguide having multiple modes at a given frequency, each with a different speed. A special
case of this is polarization mode dispersion (PMD), which comes from a superposition of two
modes that travel at different speeds due to random imperfections that break the symmetry of the
waveguide.

[edit] Higher-order dispersion over broad bandwidths

When a broad range of frequencies (a broad bandwidth) is present in a single wavepacket, such
as in an ultrashort pulse or a chirped pulse or other forms of spread spectrum transmission, it
may not be accurate to approximate the dispersion by a constant over the entire bandwidth, and
more complex calculations are required to compute effects such as pulse spreading.

In particular, the dispersion parameter D defined above is obtained from only one derivative of
the group velocity. Higher derivatives are known as higher-order dispersion.[7] These terms are
simply a Taylor series expansion of the dispersion relation β(ω) of the medium or waveguide
around some particular frequency. Their effects can be computed via numerical evaluation of
Fourier transforms of the waveform, via integration of higher-order slowly varying envelope
approximations, by a split-step method (which can use the exact dispersion relation rather than a
Taylor series), or by direct simulation of the full Maxwell's equations rather than an approximate
envelope equation.

[edit] Dispersion in gemology

In the technical terminology of gemology, dispersion is the difference in the refractive index of a
material at the B and G Fraunhofer wavelengths of 686.7 nm and 430.8 nm and is meant to
express the degree to which a prism cut from the gemstone shows "fire", or color. Dispersion is a
material property. Fire depends on the dispersion, the cut angles, the lighting environment, the
refractive index, and the viewer.

[edit] Dispersion in imaging

In photographic and microscopic lenses, dispersion causes chromatic aberration, distorting the
image, and various techniques have been developed to counteract it such as the use of
multielement lenses with glasses with different dispersion characteristics: the net effect is to
recombine (at least approximately) all colors.

[edit] Dispersion in pulsar timing

Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that emit pulses at very regular intervals ranging from
milliseconds to seconds. Astronomers believe that the pulses are emitted simultaneously over a
wide range of frequencies. However, as observed on Earth, the components of each pulse emitted
at higher radio frequencies arrive before those emitted at lower frequencies. This dispersion
occurs because of the ionised component of the interstellar medium, which makes the group
velocity frequency dependent. The extra delay added at a frequency ν is

where the dispersion constant kDM is given by

and the dispersion measure DM is the free electron column density (total electron content) ne
integrated along the path traveled by the photon from the pulsar to the Earth, and is given by

with units of parsecs per cubic centimetre (1pc/cm3 = 30.857×1021 m−2).[8]

Typically for astronometric observations, this delay cannot be measured directly, since the
emission time is unknown. What can be measured is the difference in arrival times at two
different frequencies. The delay ΔT between a high frequency νhi and a low frequency νlo
component of a pulse will be
Re-writing the above equation in terms of DM allows one to determine the DM by measuring
pulse arrival times at multiple frequencies. This in turn can be used to study the interstellar
medium, as well as allow for observations of pulsars at different frequencies to be combined