A wave crosses a glass interface

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A wave reaches a planar air–glass interface at 30 degrees. Its transmitted wavefronts turn toward the normal and become more closely spaced. Two stationary observation points sample local electric fields.

Explore: a wave crosses a glass interface

Recorded Meep fields: the local electric field oscillates while the wave pattern propagates.

E is perpendicular to the drawing plane (s polarization). Color shows signed electric field, not intensity; arrows mark wave propagation directions. The interface and observation points stay fixed. All times are greatly slowed.

Paused. Click Play to start.

−1.4+1.4Signed E⊥ / incident peak field (white = 0)

At two fixed observation points

● A · air, incident reference■ B · glass, transmitted field

Both traces use the same time and field scales. A six-period window follows the selected recording time, stopping at the recording boundaries.

Lossless, nondispersive air (n = 1) and glass (n = 1.5), separated by one planar interface. These are precomputed Meep fields; students do not need to install or run Meep. The map excludes the source and absorbing boundaries. Direction arrows and wavelength brackets are geometric guides; they do not move with the field.

About this recording

A two-dimensional Meep simulation records complex fields along the axial coordinate. The map reconstructs their transverse dependence using the imposed Bloch phase. The incident-only view comes from a separate air-only reference run; subtraction isolates the reflected field in air. No analytical wave field replaces the recorded simulation data.