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Dextrorotation and laevorotation (also spelled levorotation) [1] [2] in chemistry and physics are the optical rotation of plane-polarized light.From the point of view of the observer, dextrorotation refers to clockwise or right-handed rotation, and laevorotation refers to counterclockwise or left-handed rotation.
Polarized light with its electric field along the plane of incidence is thus denoted p-polarized, while light whose electric field is normal to the plane of incidence is called s-polarized. P-polarization is commonly referred to as transverse-magnetic (TM), and has also been termed pi-polarized or π-polarized, or tangential plane polarized.
Brewster's angle is often referred to as the "polarizing angle", because light that reflects from a surface at this angle is entirely polarized perpendicular to the plane of incidence ("s-polarized"). A glass plate or a stack of plates placed at Brewster's angle in a light beam can, thus, be used as a polarizer.
Kerr rotation and Kerr ellipticity are changes in the polarization of incident light which comes in contact with a gyromagnetic material. Kerr rotation is a rotation in the plane of polarization of transmitted light, and Kerr ellipticity is the ratio of the major to minor axis of the ellipse traced out by elliptically polarized light on the plane through which it propagates.
This definition was all the more reasonable because it meant that when a ray was polarized by reflection (off an isotopic medium), the plane of polarization was the plane of incidence and reflection — that is, the plane containing the incident ray, the normal to the reflective surface, and the polarized reflected ray.
The plane of incidence is defined by the incoming radiation's propagation vector and the normal vector of the surface. In describing reflection and refraction in optics, the plane of incidence (also called the incidence plane or the meridional plane [citation needed]) is the plane which contains the surface normal and the propagation vector of the incoming radiation. [1]
For wavelengths that are absorbed by the optically active sample, the two circularly polarized components will be absorbed to differing extents. This unequal absorption is known as circular dichroism. Circular dichroism causes incident linearly polarized light to become elliptically polarized. The two phenomena are closely related, just as are ...
Michael Faraday holding a piece of glass of the type he used to demonstrate the effect of magnetism on polarization of light, c. 1857.. By 1845, it was known through the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Étienne-Louis Malus, and others that different materials are able to modify the direction of polarization of light when appropriately oriented, [4] making polarized light a very powerful tool to ...