does a light wave have harmonic frequency?

Answer 1

Light waves can have harmonic frequencies, but it's not what you are thinking. When someone refers to a light harmonic, stop thinking about the sound analogy and start thinking about lasers. In order for a laser to be an effective analytical tool (if you are interested in this, do some research on Raman Spectroscopy, Time Resolved Laser induced Fluorescence Spectroscopy, and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) one needs to be able to produce a specific wavelength of light. While this may seem an easy thing to do, it is quite complicated.

Back to the harmonic. The harmonic can be described as a frequency doubling stage. For example, as a 1064 nm laser is passed through a harmonic generator, it's frequency is doubled and the resulting beam exits at 532 nm. This change is referred to as generating a second harmonic (relative to the original beam). This is considered a light harmonic.

This process can be repeated, but the solution may non-intuitive depending on the setup. If the 532 beam is then passed through a "second harmonic generator" the output is 266 nm (as you would expect). This beam has a frequency that is double the entering beam and four times the original. However, another setup is to place a "third harmonic generator" in the line. As the 532 nm beam enters, a 355 nm beam exits. This beam now has a frequency three times that of the original, not the entering beam.

Harmonic generators can go as high as a fourth harmonic generator (I'm not aware of higher generators, though they may exist). These generators are useful for taming something like a CO2 laser which excite around 9400 and 10600 nm.

As for applications, these beams can then be put into a variety of devices for tuning the beam. As a spectroscoper, we use an OPO (Optical Parametric Oscillator) to take the 355 beam and tune it to a variety of frequencies.

Answer 2

Harmonic Frequency

Answer 3

No.

Baxx, below, it totally off the wall. This issue has nothing to do with a medium or lack of same. It asks whether, for example, blue light of a certain frequency carries with it harmonics. If we were to look for a moment at sound waves, we know that their usual harmonics are 1-1/2 times the frequency of the fundamental, 2 times the frequency, and higher etc. Such harmonics do not exist with light waves, but it has nothing to do with the means of propogation.

Water Skipper's answer as to what "good" harmonics might do is irrelevant. The question is not whether the harmonics can be seen or whether they do any good, but whether they exist. They do not. But give Water Skipper credit for spelling "you're" correctly. I hope "your" considering giving 10 points for that alone (ha, ha).

Answer 4

Okay, I'm changing my answer. There are several answers below that I think cover it pretty well, Mr. Roark's in particular. And garypopkin's answer above is essentially worthless. He says I'm "off the wall", and he criticizes another responder, but his answer is more worthless than he accuses ours of being. water_skipper is correct in that a harmonic is simply an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. So you could take the frequency of any particular color of light, and calculate the integer multiples to find the harmonic frequencies. The answer, therefore, is YES, and garypopkin is wrong.

Answer 5

Considering you're asking this question, you probably know that a wave's harmonic is an integer multiple of the frequency (twice, 3x, 4x ...). Visible light is only one octave (doubling of frequency) so even the first harmonic of red would the ultraviolet. Since humans can't even see that I don't see what good it does.

Answer 6

Light of different frequencies can combine to form what's called "Spectral Coherence". Notice here that there is another condition being specified, and that is coherence. When light waves of different frequencies being combined are not coherent then they create a wave that is continuous in time (e.g. white light or white noise). This is the light that we usually see from the Sun or a incadescent light bulb.

However, when the light waves of different frequencies being combined are coherent (i.e. interfere constructively), they form a pulse. This is the closest to the sound wave analogy of harmonics. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence_%28physics%29#Spectral_coherence)

Answer 7

yes...light have harmonic frequency...this is practical answer to the question. You can combine two different light wavelength(color) to another different light wave(different color) and produce the second harmonic(another color).

Try it on paint. Paint reflect light wave right?

Answer 8

No. you will discover the fairway colour meaning it belongs to seen spectrum . There are no longer any impressive bounds to the seen spectrum; a common human eye will respond to wavelengths from 4 hundred to seven hundred nm, even though some persons are in a position to pick wavelengths from 380 to 780 nm. a delicate-tailored eye commonly has its optimum sensitivity at around 555 nm, interior the fairway region of the optical spectrum. on the different hand, wavelenghs for radio wave stages from a million mm to 10 Mm ( frequency 3 hundred G Hz to 30 Hz)