$Refractive Index of Water and Steam as Function Of$

Refractive Index of Water and Steam as Function Of

By Schiebener, P.

Description
Technical Reference Publication

Excerpt
Introduction: The refractive index of water has been measured with care by many researchers for well over a century. The reasons are many: water is the most prevalent liquid on earth; its properties are anomalous, and so is its refractive index; propagation, reflection and absorption of light in water all pose challenging scientific and practical problems, that require knowledge of the refractive index in order to be resolved. Water also is an excellent reference for relative refractive index measurements in other liquids. Finally, the refractive index itself is increasingly used as a local probe of properties, such as the density, that cannot readily be measured in situ. Given the amount of information accumulated over the years on the wavelength, temperature and pressure dependence of the refractive index of water, it appeared desirable to accumulate the data, assess their accuracy and devise a comprehensive formulation for this important property.

Table of Contents
Contents 1. Introduction.. .......................... 679 7. Comparison with Other Literature Data ... 694 2. Approach.. ............................ 680 8. Estimate of Reliability of the Formulation.. 703 3. Data Sources, Selection and Correction. ... 683 9. Tabulation of the Refractive Index. ....... 703 4. The Formulation. ....................... 686 10. Summary and Conclusions ............... 713 5. Comparison with the Selected Data Sets. .. 686 11. Nomenclature .......................... 714 6. Temperature Dependence of n in Liquid Wa- 12. Acknowledgments ...................... 714 ter, -12 to 100 C, in the Visible Range. .. 688 13. References ............................ 714 01990 by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on behalf of the United Appendix. Optimum Formulation of the Re- States. This copyright is assigned to the American Institute of Physics fractive Index of Liquid Water below 60 C, and the American Chemical Society. in the Visible Range, at Atmospheric Preb Reprints available from ACS; see Reprints List at back of issue. sure ................................... 715 J. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data, Vol. 19, No. 3,1990