A beam of light consisting of red, green and blue colours is incident on a right angled prism. The refractive index of the material of the prism for the above red, green and blue wavelengths are 1.39, 1.44 and 1.47 respectively.

The prism will be

detailed solution

Correct option is B

(b): As beam of light is incident normally on the face AB of the right angled prism ABC, so no refraction occurs at face AB and it passes straight and strikes the face AC at an angle of incidence i=45°. For total reflection to take place at face AC , i>ic or sini>sinic where ic is the critical angle.  But as here i=45° and sinic=1μ∴  sin45°>1μ or 12>1μ or μ>2=1.414 As μred(=1.39)<μ(=1.414) while μgreen (=1.44) and μblue (=1.47)>μ(=1.414), so only red colour will be transmitted through face AC while green and blue colours will suffer total internal reflection. So the prism will separate red colour from the green and blue colours as shown in the following figure.