Lloyd's mirage: A variant of Lloyd's mirror

Abstract

We consider an extension of the classical experiment known as 'Lloyd's mirror' in which an interference pattern is formed by the superposition of light coming directly from a point source with that coming from the specularly reflected image of the same source in a mirror. In the present experiment the mirror is replaced by a planar stratified medium, whose refractive index monotonically decreases away from the surface. This produces a mirage-like reflection. The interference is then the superposition of light coming directly from the source with that from its mirage-like image. An approximate treatment of the positions of the resultant interference fringes is given and a simple experimental ..