Transmittance

This article is about transmission through a volume. For transmission through a surface, see Fresnel equations.

File:Beer lambert1.png

Diagram of Beer-Lambert Law of transmittance of a beam of light as it travels through a cuvette of width l.

Earth's atmospheric transmittance over 1 nautical mile sea level path (infrared region). Because of the natural radiation of the hot atmosphere, the intensity of radiation is different from the transmitted part.

Transmittance of ruby in optical and near-IR spectra. Note the two broad blue and green absorption bands and one narrow absorption band on the wavelength of 694 nm, which is the wavelength of the ruby laser.

In optics and spectroscopy, transmittance is the fraction of incident light (electromagnetic radiation) at a specified wavelength that passes through a sample. The terms visible transmittance (VT) and visible absorptance (VA), which are the respective fractions for the spectrum of light visible radiation, are also used.

A related term is absorbance, or absorption factor, which is the fraction of radiation absorbed by a sample at a specified wavelength.

Definition

Transmittance is given by:

$T={\frac {I}{I_{0}}},$

where

• I is the intensity of the radiation coming out of the sample;
• I₀ is the intensity of the incident radiation.

In these equations, scattering and reflection are considered to be close to zero or otherwise accounted for. The transmittance of a sample is sometimes given as a percentage.

Note that the term "transmission" refers to the physical process of radiation passing through a sample, whereas transmittance refers to the mathematical quantity.

Relation to absorbance

Transmittance is related to absorbance A as:

$T=10^{-A},$

$A=-\log _{10}T.$

Relation to optical depth

Transmittance is related to optical depth τ as:

${T}=e^{-\tau },$

$\tau =-\ln T.$

Non-normal geometry

In plane geometry:

$T=e^{-\tau /\mu },$

where, when the plane parallel assumption is invoked, μ = cos θ with θ the angle of propagation of the light ray relative to the normal of the surface.

Beer–Lambert law

Main article: Beer–Lambert law

In case of uniform attenuation, optical depth is simply:

$\tau =\Sigma l=N\sigma l,$

where

• Σ is the attenuation coefficient;
• N is the medium concentration;
• σ is the total cross section;
• l is the geometrical path length.

So the transmittance is:

$T=e^{-\Sigma l}=e^{N\sigma l}.$

In the general nonuniform case, optical depth is an integral quantity:

$\tau =\int _{0}^{l}\Sigma (l')\,\mathrm {d} l'=\sigma \int _{0}^{l}N(l')\,\mathrm {d} l',$

so:

$T=e^{-\int _{0}^{l}\Sigma (l')\,\mathrm {d} l'}.$

This is the case of atmospheric science applications and also of radiation shielding theory.

See also

• Opacity (optics)