When light is moving from a less dense medium to a more dense medium, does the reflected ray ever have a higher intensity than the refracted ray?

Question

May I please have a simple yes/no answer to the question in the title. I've been researching this for 3 hours. I can't find a simple answer. I just want validation. If the answer is 'no', may you please provide examples?

Possible duplicate of Relation between intensity of light and refractive index — John Rennie, Oct 22 '16 at 13:35
@JohnRennie: I don't think that answers the posed question; there's also a complicated relationship between the amplitudes of the reflected & refracted rays, so the index of refraction alone doesn't tell you anything. — Michael Seifert, Oct 22 '16 at 17:26

akhmeteli · Answer 1 · 2016-10-22T13:26:18.983

2

Yes. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_equations#Normal_incidence for n_2>>n_1. EDIT (10/22/2016) As your question seeems to leave some place for ambiguity, let me clarify that my "yes" means that the reflected ray can indeed have higher intensity than the refracted one when light goes from a less dense medium to a more dense medium.

edited Oct 22 '16 at 13:26

answered Oct 22 '16 at 13:19

akhmeteli

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When light is moving from a less dense medium to a more dense medium, does the reflected ray ever have a higher intensity than the refracted ray?

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