Undergraduate instructional laboratory about light scattering and the Tyndall Effect

Abstract

Light scattering is the physical phenomenon responsible among other things, of the blue color of the sky, the glow when fog is illuminated by a headlight, and basically the motive why we see every illuminated object. The density of the scatterers determines if the scattered light is canceled out or not. The Tyndall Effect is the scattering by objects with sizes smaller that the wavelength of light dispersed in a fluid. In this work we explore the properties of the scattered light through the Tyndall Effect observed with silver nanoparticles dispersed in water.

Keywords:
Tyndal Effect; light scattering; nanofluid; silver nanoparticle