QuickNote | Introduction | Mathematical Analysis | Applet Tutorial | Applet Worksheet | Quiz | References | Feedback

Introduction


The polarization of a plane wave describes the motion of the electric field as a function of time.   Light is essentially an electromagnetic wave propagating through space, and the way the orientation of its electric field varies as the light propagates is call polarization. The white light we see in our daily life are usually randomly polarized, that is as the wave propagate, the orientation of the electric field changes disorderly. However there are special cases, such as

  1. linearly polarized light:
    • the electric field oscillates up and down as time passes,
  2. circularly polarized light:
    • the electric field rotates as times passes,
  3. and elliptically polarized light:
    • the electric field rotates with its magnitude varies and forms and ellipse when plotted, as time passes.

These are what we called polarized light, and their polarization can be caused by passing a beam through a crystal, a polarizer, or simply by the processes of reflection and refraction.

This applet is a tool to visualize these different states of polarization.