The refractive index of a material medium
Refractometry

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R6300 V1 Article

The refractive index of a material medium
Refractometry

Author : Claude VÉRET

Review date: March 9, 2026 | Lire en français

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1. The refractive index of a material medium

1.1 Definitions

The speed of light in a vacuum is referred to as c. A constant for all electromagnetic radiation, its value, agreed at the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures on October 20, 1983, is 299,792,458 m/s. This conventional value made it possible to redefine the metre as the length travelled by light in a vacuum in a time, in fractions of a second, equal to the inverse of the above number.

When propagating in a vacuum, light of frequency ν has wavelength λ 0 such that :

λ 0 = c / ν

Passing through a homogeneous transparent...

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