Refraction (sound) Refraction (sound) Refraction, in acoustics, comparable to the refraction of electromagnetic radiation, is the bending of sound propagation trajectories (rays) in inhomogeneous elastic media (gases, liquids, and solids) in which the wave velocity is a function of spatial coordinates. Bending of acoustic rays in layered inhomogeneous media occurs towards a layer with a smaller sound velocity. This effect is responsible for guided propagation of sound waves over long distances in the ocean and in the atmosphere. In the atmosphere, vertical gradients of wind speed and temperature lead to refraction. The wind speed is usually increasing with height, which leads to
Negative refraction propagation direction of the light, thus the sign of "n" must be chosen to match the physical situation. The principal symptom of negative refraction is just that – light rays are refracted on the "same" side of the normal on entering the material, as indicated in the diagram, and by a suitably general form of Snell's law. Negative refraction Negative refraction is the name for an electromagnetic phenomenon where light rays are refracted at an interface in the reverse sense to that normally expected. Such an effect can be obtained using a metamaterial which has been designed to achieve a