What is the term for the phenomenon when the surface impedance is directly related to wave characteristics?

The term that describes the phenomenon when the surface impedance is directly related to wave characteristics aligns correctly with wave reflection. Surface impedance is a measure of how much a wave is resisted by a surface, and it plays a crucial role in determining how waves behave when they encounter different materials.

When analyzing wave reflection, particularly in acoustic and electromagnetic physics, the surface impedance affects not only how much of the wave is reflected, but also how the wave will transmit into or through the material. The interaction of waves with material surfaces is fundamentally governed by this impedance, thus influencing the characteristics of the reflected wave.

In contrast, wave attenuation refers to the gradual loss of intensity of the wave as it propagates through a medium, diffraction is related to the bending of waves around obstacles, and modulation involves varying a wave's carrier signal to encode information. These concepts, while relevant in the study of waves, do not specifically connect surface impedance with wave characteristics in the same direct manner as wave reflection does.