Understand the physics behind total internal reflection and why light can become completely trapped inside a medium. This video explains the conditions required for total internal reflection, the role ...

The body hairs of the Saharan silver ant cause total internal reflection of light to make the ants almost ten times more reflective, preventing overheating and yielding their silver sheen, according ...

TIRF is a microscopy technique that is used to image fluorescent molecules, such as green fluorescent protein (GFP) and fluorochromes, in liquids that are adjacent to a solid with a high refractive ...

In TIRF microscopy, fluorescent molecules are in a sample in an aqueous environment that is near a solid with a high refractive index, usually a glass coverslip. At what is called the critical angle, ...

Cool operator: the Saharan silver ant Cataglyphis bombycina. (Courtesy: P Landmann) A species of desert-dwelling ant is able to tolerate temperatures exceeding 50 °C because its body hairs act like ...

Light that is reflected back from the edge of the medium it is traveling through. When light rays travel at an angle greater than the "critical" angle, which is determined by the medium, the light ...

When a ray of light that is travelling through a piece of glass strikes the interface between the glass and the air, it changes direction according to Snell’s law. If the angle of incidence is less ...

(Nanowerk News) Light can be confined inside a reflective medium—a stream of water, a thread of glass fiber. In fiber optics, the light moves, trapped in a glass strand via the mechanism of total ...

The DeltaVision OMX V4 enables Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy (TIRF). This technique uses an evanescent wave to selectively excite fluorophores that are close to the coverslip. This ...