On the iridescence of potassium chlorate crystals

Summary

Spectrograms obtained with five iridescent crystals of potassium chlorate at varying azimuths and obliquities of incidence have been obtained and are reproduced with the paper. Some of the results observed are explicable in terms of the general theory of the optical behaviour of a regularly stratified medium,viz., (a) the appearance of a whole series of subsidiary bands accompanying the principal maxima and distributed asymmetrically about them and (b) the variation of the spectral width of the principal maximum with change of azimuthal angle and obliquity of incidence. Other striking effects are however also observed which are not so explicable,viz., when the azimuthal angle is nearly zero, the principal band splits into a doublet the components of which drift apart progressively and also shift towards shorter wavelengths with increasing obliquity of incidence. When the azimuthal angle is 90° the crystals exhibit the principal maximum as a triplet, the central component of which has a width of the same order of magnitude as the separation of the doublet in the preceding case, while its outer components are much further apart.