Luis Marquez
Physics 211 F10
Snell's Law
 Index of Refraction It's A Trap
 Vapor_Liquid Equilibria   Actual Physics Bibliography

Vapor-Liquid Equalibria
A real world example of the index of refraction helping research can be seen in V.H. Alverez's experiment concerning vapor-liquid equilibria of "N-methyl-2-hydroxyethylammonium butyrate plus (methylacetateorethyl acetate orpropyl acetate)at several temperatures" (Alvarez, 2012).  Additionally, he was able to compute their non-linear indexes of refraction and densities in various states of testing. He goes over the deviations in the index of refraction for three different liquids:


Alvarez, 2012
Additionally, he showed the relationships between the "experimental excess molar volume and deviations in the index of refraction"  of different esters:

Alvarez, 2012
Alvarez used the "Peng–Robinson equation of state with the Wong–Sandler" mixing rule in addition to a COSMO-SAC model to predict the VLE (vapor liquid equilibrium) and the experimental density. His full report can be read here.