Linear polarization
In electrodynamics, linear polarization or plane polarization of electromagnetic radiation is a confinement of the electric field vector or magnetic field vector to a given plane along the direction of propagation. See polarization for more information.
Historically, the orientation of a polarized electromagnetic wave has been defined in the optical regime by the orientation of the electric vector, and in the radio regime, by the orientation of the magnetic vector.
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[edit] Mathematical description of linear polarization
The classical sinusoidal plane wave solution of the electromagnetic wave equation for the electric and magnetic fields is (cgs units)
for the magnetic field, where k is the wavenumber,
is the angular frequency of the wave, and c is the speed of light.
Here
is the amplitude of the field and
is the Jones vector in the x-y plane.
The wave is linearly polarized when the phase angles
are equal,
.
This represents a wave polarized at an angle θ with respect to the x axis. In that case the Jones vector can be written
.
The state vectors for linear polarization in x or y are special cases of this state vector.
If unit vectors are defined such that
and
then the polarization state can written in the "x-y basis" as
.
[edit] Applications of linear polarization
A research group at the MIT Media Lab has reported the use of polarization field synthesis to create a dynamic light field display. The prototype display is composed of multiple LCD layers, each acting as polarization rotators, enclosed by a pair of crossed linear polarizers. A Four-dimensional light-field can be emitted by algorithmically determining the optimal rotations to be applied at each layer of the display. [1]
[edit] References
- Jackson, John D. (1998). Classical Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 0-471-30932-X.
- ^ Lanman, Douglas; Gordon Wetzstein, Matthew Hirsch, Wolfgang Heidrich, Ramesh Raskar (6). "Polarization fields: dynamic light field display using multi-layer LCDs". ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 30 (6). doi:10.1145/2070781.2024220.
[edit] External links
- Animation of Linear Polarization (on YouTube)
- Comparison of Linear Polarization with Circular and Elliptical Polarizations (YouTube Animation)
[edit] See also
- Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions of the electromagnetic wave equation
- Polarization
- Photon polarization
This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal Standard 1037C".

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