Snell's Law relates the indices of refraction n of the two media to the directions of propagation in terms of the angles to the normal. Snell's law can be derived from Fermat's Principle or from the Fresnel Equations.
If the incident medium has the larger index of refraction, then the angle with the normal is increased by refraction. The larger index medium is commonly called the "internal" medium, since air with n=1 is usually the surrounding or "external" medium. You can calculate the condition for total internal reflection by setting the refracted angle = 90° and calculating the incident angle. Since you can't refract the light by more than 90°, all of it will reflect for angles of incidence greater than the angle which gives refraction at 90°.
Thin Film Interference A film of thickness from 0.5 to 10 m is a transparent medium of glass, mica, air enclosed between glass, soap film, etc. When the light is made incident on this thin film partial reflection and partial refraction occur from the top surface of the film. The refracted beam travels in the medium and again suffers partial reflection and partial refraction at the bottom surface of the film. In this way several reflected and refracted rays are produces by a single incident ray. As they moves are superimposed on each other and produces interference pattern. Interference in Parallel Film ( Reflected Rays) Consider a thin film of uniform thickness ‘t’ and refractive index bounded between air. Let us consider monochromatic ray AB is made incident on the film, at B part of ray is reflected (R 1 ) and a part is refracted along BC.At C The beam BC again suffer partial reflection and partial refraction, the reflected beam CD mov...