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Huygens principle of double refraction, named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, explains the phenomenon of double refraction observed in uniaxial anisotropic material such as calcite. When unpolarized light propagates in such materials (along a direction different from the optical axis ), it splits into two different rays, known as ...
Determination of the change in polarization state using such an apparatus is the basis of ellipsometry, by which the optical properties of specular surfaces can be gauged through reflection. Birefringence measurements have been made with phase-modulated systems for examining the transient flow behaviour of fluids.
Gas lasers using an external cavity (reflection by one or both mirrors outside the gain medium) generally seal the tube using windows tilted at Brewster's angle. This prevents light in the intended polarization from being lost through reflection (and reducing the round-trip gain of the laser) which is critical in lasers having a low round-trip ...
For the p polarization, the incident, reflected, and transmitted E fields are parallel to the red arrows and may therefore be described by their components in the directions of those arrows. Let those components be E i, E r, E t (redefining the symbols for the new context). Let the reflection and transmission coefficients be r p and t p.
Photon polarization is the quantum mechanical description of the classical polarized sinusoidal plane electromagnetic wave. An individual photon can be described as having right or left circular polarization , or a superposition of the two.
Upon such reflection, the rotation of the plane of polarization of the reflected light is identical to that of the incident field. However, with propagation now in the opposite direction, the same rotation direction that would be described as "right-handed" for the incident beam, is "left-handed" for propagation in the reverse direction, and ...
When the two polarization states are relative to the direction of a surface (usually found with Fresnel reflection), they are usually termed s and p. This distinction between Cartesian and s–p polarization can be negligible in many cases, but it becomes significant for achieving high contrast and with wide angular spreads of the incident light.
With sections covering the nature of light, diffraction, thin-film interference, reflection and refraction, double refraction and polarization, chromatic polarization, and modification of polarization by reflection, it made a comprehensive case for the wave theory to a readership that was not restricted to physicists. [249]