![]() In some applications such as telecommunications, the absolute phase of a wave is often not important but only the propagation of wave packets or "pulses" in that case one is interested only in variations of group velocity with frequency, so-called group-velocity dispersion.Īll common transmission media also vary in attenuation (normalized to transmission length) as a function of frequency, leading to attenuation distortion this is not dispersion, although sometimes reflections at closely spaced impedance boundaries (e.g. ![]() Design of compound achromatic lenses, in which chromatic aberration is largely cancelled, uses a quantification of a glass's dispersion given by its Abbe number V, where lower Abbe numbers correspond to greater dispersion over the visible spectrum. In optics, one important and familiar consequence of dispersion is the change in the angle of refraction of different colors of light, as seen in the spectrum produced by a dispersive prism and in chromatic aberration of lenses. Physically, dispersion translates in a loss of kinetic energy through absorption. Within optics, dispersion is a property of telecommunication signals along transmission lines (such as microwaves in coaxial cable) or the pulses of light in optical fiber. In optics and in wave propagation in general, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency sometimes the term chromatic dispersion is used for specificity to optics in particular.Ī medium having this common property may be termed a dispersive medium (plural dispersive media).Īlthough the term is used in the field of optics to describe light and other electromagnetic waves, dispersion in the same sense can apply to any sort of wave motion such as acoustic dispersion in the case of sound and seismic waves, and in gravity waves (ocean waves). ![]() A compact fluorescent lamp seen through an Amici prism
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