Refractive index of solutions at high concentrations
W. Mahmood bin Mat Yunus and Azizan bin Abdul Rahman
The refractive index of liquid solutions at the He-Ne laser wavelength, 0.6328 am, is presented. The
measurements were carried out using the conventional minimum deviation method of an equilateral hollow
glass prism. The refractive indices of sucrose, sodium chloride, glucose, and caster sugar solutions for a range
of density varying from distilled water to a saturated condition were measured. The result shows that at
higher concentrations a slight curvature can be seen from the plot of refractive index vs concentration of
solution. However, the refractive index of sucrose shows a linear relationship with concentration. The
accuracy of the measurements is estimated to be better than 0.3%.
The refractive index n is a basic optical property of n = sin[(A + D)/2] (1)
materials and its accurate value is often needed in sin(A/2)
many branches of physics and chemistry. Although To perform the experiment, an equilateral hollow
numerous methods for measuring the refractive index prism is fixed on a spectrometer table. A 5-mW He-
of a liquid solution are available from textbooks,1 the Ne laser at 0.6328-,umwavelength was used as the light
most suitable and easiest method was reported earli- source. A schematic representation of the apparatus
er.2 3 The authors have reported that the use of an setup is shown in Fig. 2. Initially, with no liquid in the
equilateral hollow prism would allow measurement of prism the collimated laser beam passes through the
the refractive index of most ordinary liquids, thus prism and the position T, of the telescope is recorded.
opening up the possibility of studying small variations Once the prism is filled with liquid, one surface of the
in the refractive index of a solution with concentration. prism is irradiated with a collimated laser beam. The
The aim of this short paper is to report the variations prism is then rotated, and the point at which the re-
of refractive index which occur when the concentration fracted beam changes direction indentifies the mini-
of a solution is altered from distilled water to a saturat- mum angle of deviation and can be measured by mov-
ed condition. The theory and method have been dis- ing the telescope to position T2 (see Fig. 2).
cussed elsewhere. 2 -5 Regarding Fig. 1, a collimated Our measurements were carried out with four liquid
light beam is incident at an angle a on one face of the solutions, that is, sucrose, sodium chloride, glucose,
prism including angle A. The angle of deviation D is and caster sugar, and the results obtained are present-
found to be a minimum if a and e are equal. The ed in Figs. 3-6. All the data points on the graphs
refractive index of the prism can be determined by represent three independent measurements carried
using Snell's law: out at a particular concentration of solution. Howev-
er, the data points presented did not account for the
error in measurement of concentration, which is esti-
mated at <2%. The dashed lines in Figs. 3 and 4
represent data reported in Ref. 3. At low concentra-
tion, <10 g/100 mliter, the present values of refractive
index for NaCl are in good agreement with the data
reported in Ref. 3, but at higher concentrations the
The authors are with University of Agriculture Malaysia, Physics
refractive index is observed to be slightly higher and a
slight curvature can be seen. In Figs. 5 and 6, the
Department, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Received 14 September 1987. linear part of the graph can only be observed with a
0003-6935/88/163341-03$02.00/0. solution concentration <12 and 24 g/100 mliter, re-
© 1988 Optical Society of America. spectively.
15 August 1988 / Vol. 27, No. 16 / APPLIEDOPTICS 3341
Fig. 1. Nomenclature in derivation of minimum deviation.
Fig. 2. Experimental setup to measure the prism's deviation mini-
mum.
1390
1430- 1 3X0-
x
c) , 1410
X
1-370
U 1-390
.
I)
1-360- 7-/
1370-
1-350- 1-350-
1*330 He I-~~~~~~~~~
10 20 20 40 50 60 70
Concentration, g/1OOml. '-4
1-330
Fig. 3. Index of refraction variation with concentration for sucrose. 2 4 , 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Concentration, gm/iOOml.
Fig. 4. Index of refraction variation with concentration for sodium
chloride.
1-372-
1-37,3-
1-368
1-366
1 364 1364
/
1 362 1 362
1-360 1-360 -@
1-358 1-358
1 1-356
x 1-356
l 1.354 1-354
a 1-352 > 1-352
) 1.350
{) 1350
'4 1348 ' 1348
a-V
: 1-346
1-344 1-344
1342 1-342
1-340 1-340
1338 1338
1336 1 336
1-334 1-334
1-332 1-332
1-330 1-330
2 4 6 8 10 12 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34
14 16 18 20 22 24 26 2820 3 32 34
Concentration, g/lOOml. Concentration, gm/iOOnl.
Fig. 6. Index of refraction variation with concentration for caster
Fig. 5. Index of refraction variation with concentration for glucose.
sugar.
3342 APPLIEDOPTICS / Vol. 27, No. 16 / 15 August 1988
In this work, the value of angle A was determined by san of the University of Agriculture Malaysia for his
measuring the angle of minimum deviation when the helpful discussion and for reading the manuscript.
prism was filled with distilled water. Thus by using References
Eq. (1), the value of A was determined as (60.0 ± 0.1)°,
1. R. S. Longhurst, Geometrical and Physical Optics (Wiley, New
and this is necessarily the same as the accuracy of D.
York, 1967).
Therefore the error analysis indicated that the accura- 2. B. W. Grange, W. H. Stevenson, and R. Viskanta, "Refractive
cy of determination of refractive index is estimated to Index of Liquid Solutions at Low Temperatures: An Accurate
be of the order of 0.3%. Measurement," Appl. Opt. 15, 858 (1976).
In view of the fact that the present measurement of 3. D. D. Jenkin, "Refractive Index of Solution," Phys. Educ. 17, 82
refractive index was carried out at only one wavelength (1982).
[He-Ne laser (0.6328,um)]it is impossible to draw any 4. J. M. Cariou, J. Dugas, L. Martin, and P. Michel, "Refractive-
physical explanation for the nonlinearity relation be- Index Variations with Temperature of PMMA and Polycarbon-
tween refractive index and solution concentration. ate," Appl. Opt. 25, 334 (1986).
5. J. D. Bass and D. J. Weidner, "Method for Measuring the Refrac-
tive Index of Transparent Solids," Rev. Sci. Instrum. 55, 1569
The authors would like to thank Zainul Abidin Has- (1984).
CALL FOR PAPERS
THE OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF MAMMALIAN TISSUE'
APPLIED OPTICS will feature a special section of contributed Papers on the
optical characteristics of mammalian tissues, an optical subject of considerable
importance, growing out of the burgeoning application of laser and incoherent light
in the life sciences and in medicine for diagnosis and cancer therapy.
Manuscripts will be reviewed under APPLIED OPTICS standards. The guest
editors are A. E. Profio and L. E. Preuss.
Theoretical and experimental topics to be dealt with are:
a) Light diffusion in turbid material.
b) Mathematical modeling.
c) Physical mechanisms of absorption and scattering.
d) Determination of tissue's fundamental optical coefficients.
e) Light delivery modes, sources, detection, measurement systems, and
current instrumentation.
f) Light dosimetry.
g) Other topics related to the subject of transport of light in tissue.
The deadline for submission is November 21, 1988. Contributions may be
given to the guest editors at the symposium on this topic, at the 1988 Optical
Society of America Santa Clara meeting, or they may be sent to:
L. E. Preuss, Radiation Physics Research Laboratory
Education & Research Bldg., Room #3053
Henry Ford Hospital
2799 W. Grand Blvd.
Detroit, MI 48202
Telephone: (313) 876-1216
15 August 1988 / Vol. 27, No. 16 / APPLIEDOPTICS 3343
