How do one-way mirrors work?

One-way mirrors are coated with a half-silvered layer, allowing the mirror to reflect half the light that strikes its surface.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Just about everyone has seen a television show or movie in which a criminal suspect is questioned while detectives watch from behind a one-way mirror. How does a piece of glass manage to reflect light from one side while remaining clear on the other?

The secret is that it doesn't. A one-way mirror has a reflective coating applied in a very thin, sparse layer -- so thin that it's called a half-silvered surface. The name half-silvered comes from the fact that the reflective molecules coat the glass so sparsely that only about half the molecules needed to make the glass an opaque mirror are applied. At the molecular level, there are reflective molecules speckled all over the glass in an even film but only half of the glass is covered. The half-silvered surface will reflect about half the light that strikes its surface, while letting the other half go straight through. It turns out that half-silvered mirrors are also essential to many types of lasers -- see How Lasers Work for details.

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So why doesn't the "criminal suspect" see the detectives in the next room? The answer lies in the lighting of the two rooms. The room in which the glass looks like a mirror is kept very brightly lit, so that there is plenty of light to reflect back from the mirror's surface. The other room, in which the glass looks like a window, is kept dark, so there is very little light to transmit through the glass. On the criminal's side, the criminal sees his own reflection. On the detectives' side, the large amount of light coming from the criminal's side is what they see. In many ways, it's the same as if people were whispering in one room while a loud stereo played in the other. The sound of the whisper might carry into the room with the stereo, but it would be drowned out by the intensity of the music.

If the lights in the room with the mirror are suddenly turned out, or the lights in the observation room suddenly turned on, then the one-way mirror becomes a window, with people in each room able to see those in the other. You can see this effect in any mirrored office building at night -- if the light is on in an office, you can see into the office just fine.

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One Way Mirror FAQ

How does a one-way mirror work?
A one-way mirror has a thin reflective coating called a half-silvered surface. This surface makes the glass translucent and only reflects about half the light striking its surface.
How do you know if a mirror is a one-way mirror?
To check if a mirror is a one-way mirror, place your fingernail against the reflective surface. If there's no gap between your fingernail and the reflected image, it's a one-way mirror.
Can you see through one-way glass?
You can see through a one-way glass if you're in a dark room. If you're in a brightly lit room, you will only see your reflection.
Is a one-way mirror translucent?
A one-way mirror is half-silvered, meaning that one side is transparent while the other side is translucent.
Can you see through mirrored window film at night?
You can see through a mirror window film at night if the room you're looking into has the lights turned on.

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