Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Trajectories Describing The Evolution Of Polarized Light In Homogeneous Anisotropic Media And Liquid Crystals, Rasheed M.A. Azzam, N. M. Bashara, B. E. Merrill
Trajectories Describing The Evolution Of Polarized Light In Homogeneous Anisotropic Media And Liquid Crystals, Rasheed M.A. Azzam, N. M. Bashara, B. E. Merrill
Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications
Trajectories are given that describe the evolution of the ellipse of polarization in the complex plane for light propagating in a homogeneous anisotropic medium and along the helical axis of a cholesteric liquid crystal. For the general homogeneous anisotropic medium that exhibits combined birefringence and dichroism the trajectory is a spiral that converges to the low-absorption eigenpolarization. For pure birefringence the trajectory becomes a complete circle that encloses one eigenpolarization, whereas for pure dichroism the trajectory becomes an arc of a circle that ends at the low-absorption eigenstate. The case of a cholesteric (or twisted nematic) liquid crystal leads to …
Loci Of Invariant-Azimuth And Invariant-Ellipticity Polarization States Of An Optical System, Rasheed M.A. Azzam, N. M. Bashara
Loci Of Invariant-Azimuth And Invariant-Ellipticity Polarization States Of An Optical System, Rasheed M.A. Azzam, N. M. Bashara
Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications
The loci of polarization states for which either the ellipticity alone or the azimuth alone remains invariant upon passing through an optical system are introduced. The cartesian equations of these two loci are derived in the complex plane in which the polarization states are represented. The equations are quartic and are conveniently expressed in terms of the elements of the Jones. matrix of the optical system. As an exple the loci are determined for a system composed of a π/4 rotator followed by a quarter-wave retarder.