We all know that light is reflected from mirror but my question is that what happens at Quantum level when the process of reflection is happening?
does the photon first get absorbed and then re-emmited from surface of mirror or is the photon just bounce from the surface?
Photons get absorbed, then the atoms re-emit them. I can get more into the details but it difficult to understand without some knowledge in QM. In one sentence I would say that the frequency of visible light matches with the energy needed to excite the atoms.
The photon elastically scatters off collective electronic states of the solid. These can be optical phonons or plasma resonances.
