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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Construction and Characterization of External Cavity Diode Lasers for Atomic Physics
Published on: April 24, 2014
Negative lateral shift of a light beam transmitted through a dielectric slab and interaction of boundary effects
1State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics Technology, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Academia Sinica, 322 West Youyi Road, Xi'an 710068, People's Republic of China. cfli@mail.shu.edu.cn
Abstract:
It is found that when a light beam travels through a slab of optically denser dielectric medium in air, the lateral shift of the transmitted beam can be negative. This is a novel phenomenon that is reversed in comparison with the geometrical optic prediction according to Snell's law of refraction. A Gaussian-shaped beam is analyzed in the paraxial approximation, and a comparison with numerical simulations is made. Finally, an explanation for the negativity of the lateral shift is suggested, in terms of the interaction of boundary effects of the slab's two interfaces with air.
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