| MadSci Network: Physics |
> How can someone test ,(experimentally), for circularly polarized
> and elliptically polarized light ?
If you have a laser beam, or a fairly monochromatic beam, you can check by using a quarter-wave plate and a polarizer. The quarter- wave plate changes linear polarization to circular and vice versa, so if you make transmission tests with the polarizer, and then the quarter-wave plate and the polarizer, it will tell you whether you have circularly (and, depending on how you rotate the quarter-wave plate, elliptically) polarized light.
If you have a lot of money, there are ellipsometers which do this measurement all automatically for you.
-Greg Billock
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