A visual classroom demonstration of frustrated total internal reflection as an analogue to optical tunnelling

Frustrated total internal reflection is presented as a visually attractive and convenient classroom demonstration. Optical evanescent waves penetrating through a dielectric barrier is a classical analogue to quantum mechanical tunnelling. We use the traditional double prism arrangement to demonstrate the pickup and relaunching of the evanescent wave. Total internal reflection could be completely frustrated by the insertion of an index matching fluid. (paper)