Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Interference and Diffraction02:18

Interference and Diffraction

Interference is a characteristic phenomenon exhibited by waves. When two electromagnetic waves interact with their peaks and troughs coinciding, a resulting wave with enhanced amplitude is produced. This is known as constructive interference. In this case, the two waves interacting are in phase with each other.
X-ray Crystallography02:18

X-ray Crystallography

The size of the unit cell and the arrangement of atoms in a crystal may be determined from measurements of the diffraction of X-rays by the crystal, termed X-ray crystallography.
Diffraction
Diffraction is the change in the direction of travel experienced by an electromagnetic wave when it encounters a physical barrier whose dimensions are comparable to those of the wavelength of the light. X-rays are electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths about as long as the distance between neighboring...
Phase Contrast and Differential Interference Contrast Microscopy01:26

Phase Contrast and Differential Interference Contrast Microscopy

Phase-Contrast Microscopes
In-phase-contrast microscopes, interference between light directly passing through a cell and light refracted by cellular components is used to create high-contrast, high-resolution images without staining. It is the oldest and simplest type of microscope that creates an image by altering the wavelengths of light rays passing through the specimen. Altered wavelength paths are created using an annular stop in the condenser. The annular stop produces a hollow cone of...
Propagation of Waves01:07

Propagation of Waves

When a wave propagates from one medium to another, part of it may get reflected in the first medium, and part of it may get transmitted to the second medium. In such a case, the interface of the two mediums can be considered as a boundary that is neither fixed nor free.
Consider a scenario where a wave propagates from a string of low linear mass density to a string of high linear mass density. In such a case, the reflected wave is out of phase with respect to the incident wave, however the...
Reflection of Waves01:07

Reflection of Waves

When a wave travels from one medium to another, it gets reflected at the boundary of the second medium. A common example of this is when a person yells at a distance from a cliff and hears the echo of their voice. The sound waves (longitudinal waves) traveling in the air are reflected from the bounding cliff. Similarly, flipping one end of a string whose other end is tied to a wall causes a pulse (transverse wave) to travel through the string, which gets reflected upon reaching the wall. In...
Standing Waves in a Cavity01:28

Standing Waves in a Cavity

A household microwave and lasers are examples of standing electromagnetic waves in a cavity. When two conducting metal plates are placed parallel at the nodal planes, it creates a cavity where standing waves are formed. The cavity between the two planes is analogous to a stretched string held at the points x = 0 and x = L. Here, the distance 'L' between the two planes must be an integer multiple of half of the wavelength. The wavelengths that satisfy this condition are given by:

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Phytohormone supplementation for omega-3 production in microalgae and its potential integration with wastewater cultivation.

World journal of microbiology & biotechnology·2026
Same author

Endoplasmic reticulum proteins MCTP-1 and ESYT-2 support presynaptic function during sustained activity in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Neuroscience·2026
Same author

Label-free spectral confocal reflectance microscopy for ex vivo neuroimaging and neural structure visualization.

Methods (San Diego, Calif.)·2025
Same author

SlugAtlas, a histological and 3D online resource of the land slugs Deroceras laeve and Ambigolimax valentianus.

PloS one·2024
Same author

Bionanomining: bioengineered CuO nanoparticles from mining and organic waste for photo-catalytic dye degradation.

Environmental geochemistry and health·2024
Same author

Fibrillogenesis in collagen hydrogels accelerated by carboxylated microbeads.

Biomedical materials (Bristol, England)·2024

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Fourier-Based Diffraction Analysis of Live Caenorhabditis elegans
08:24

Fourier-Based Diffraction Analysis of Live Caenorhabditis elegans

Published on: September 13, 2017

Phase change in a diffracted wave: a Cornu spiral perspective.

Remy Avila1, Victor M Castaño

  • 1Centro de Física Aplicada y Tecnología Avanzada, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A.P. 1-1010, Santiago de Querétaro 76000, México. r.avila@crya.unam.mx

Optics Letters
|September 18, 2010
PubMed
Summary

This study introduces a novel method to evaluate phase changes in diffracted waves using the Cornu spiral. The research demonstrates that wave phase equals the tangent line

More Related Videos

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
06:24

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal

Published on: October 31, 2019

Automated Charting of the Visual Space of Housefly Compound Eyes
08:34

Automated Charting of the Visual Space of Housefly Compound Eyes

Published on: March 31, 2022

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Fourier-Based Diffraction Analysis of Live Caenorhabditis elegans
08:24

Fourier-Based Diffraction Analysis of Live Caenorhabditis elegans

Published on: September 13, 2017

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
06:24

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal

Published on: October 31, 2019

Automated Charting of the Visual Space of Housefly Compound Eyes
08:34

Automated Charting of the Visual Space of Housefly Compound Eyes

Published on: March 31, 2022

Area of Science:

  • Optics and Photonics
  • Wave Phenomena
  • Mathematical Physics

Background:

  • Fresnel integrals are essential for describing wave diffraction.
  • The Cornu spiral is a graphical tool used to visualize Fresnel integrals, primarily for intensity changes.
  • Phase changes in diffracted waves are less commonly analyzed using this graphical method.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To present a simple evaluation of the phase change in a diffracted wave using the Cornu spiral.
  • To complement the existing analysis of intensity changes with a phase analysis.
  • To offer a new perspective on the graphical interpretation of Fresnel integrals.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing the Cornu spiral, a graphical representation of Fresnel integrals.
  • Analyzing the geometric properties of the Cornu spiral to determine phase information.
  • Relating the tangent line slope on the Cornu spiral to the diffracted wave's phase.

Main Results:

  • A straightforward method for evaluating the phase change of a diffracted wave is presented.
  • The phase of a wave diffracted by a slit is found to be directly related to the slope of the tangent line on the Cornu spiral.
  • This phase is equal to the tangent slope shifted by π/4.

Conclusions:

  • The Cornu spiral can be effectively used to evaluate both intensity and phase changes in diffracted waves.
  • This work provides the first known evaluation of phase change via the Cornu spiral.
  • The established relationship offers a new analytical tool for understanding wave diffraction phenomena.