Optical Properties

There are five categories of energy stimuli that every material must respond to: mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical and optical. Beyond these five categories are many less important ones, and a more comprehensive list of material properties can be found here. An input of one or more of these energies will produce a change in the material’s composition or microstructure.

Optical properties can be described on both the intrinsic and extrinsic level because the nature of these properties is dependent upon the electron field at the surface of the material (the viewable area of a material. These properties include categories such as reflectivity, transmission and absorption. Many of these properties can be altered physically, such as rubbing sandpaper on a highly reflective surface of metal will cause it to lose some of its luster. Other optical properties, such as color or refractive index, are more closely related to the actual chemical compound and what is absorbed and reflected from the light spectrum. Some materials, such as glass (an amorphous solid) have a high trasmissivity and reflect almost nothing from the color spectrum.