Polarizer
An optical filter that transmits light of a specific polarization and blocks others.
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Reinraum · Public domain
Light waves of a particular polarization are allowed through an optical filter called a polarizer, while those of other polarizations are blocked.[1] Such a device takes a beam whose polarization is mixed or not defined and transforms it into one with a well-defined polarization state.[1]
Quick Facts
- Field
- Optics
- Types
- Linear polarizers and circular polarizers
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
These films can be mounted on a plate or cemented into a cube, such as the MacNeille cube.[2] Wire-grid polarizers reflect waves whose electric field is parallel to the wires, while transmitting waves with perpendicular electric fields.[3] A quarter-wave plate made of birefringent material can create circularly polarized light by delaying one component of the light relative to the other.[4] Thin glass plates, no thicker than 0.5 mm, containing elongated silver nano-particles, form a modern type of absorptive polarizer.[5]
These glass-based polarizers can have polarization ratios up to 100,000:1 and absorb only 1.5% of correctly polarized light.[5] Beam-splitting polarizers can be made by applying a special optical coating onto a glass substrate, creating a thin-film linear polarizer.[2] The electric field of the transmitted wave is oriented entirely perpendicular to the wires, resulting in linear polarization.[3]
What the cited sources add
Their analysis showed that for electric field components perpendicular to the wires, the medium behaves like a dielectric.[6] For electric field components parallel to the wires, the medium behaves like a reflective metal.[6] X. J. Yu and Hoi Sing Kwok, in a 2003 Journal of Applied Physics paper, used rigorous coupled-wave analysis to derive analytical solutions for wire-grid polarizers when light strikes at oblique angles.[7][6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Polarizer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wolf, "The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to Playstation and Beyond", ABC-CLIO, 2008, p. 315; Johnsen, "The Optics of Life: A Biologist's Guide to Light in Nature", Princeton Univ. Press, 2012, p. 207–208; Basu, "Dictionary of Pure and Applied Physics", CRC Press, 2000, p. 142–143; Gåsvik, "Optical Metrology", John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p. 219–221 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Polarizer" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Polarizer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hecht, Eugene. Optics, 2nd ed., Addison Wesley (1990) . Chapter 8. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Polarizer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Refer to well referenced section in Circular Polarization article for a discussion of handedness. Left/Right Handedness (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Polarizer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Polarcor glass polarizers: Product information", Corning.com, December 2006 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Polarizer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Yu, "Optical wire-grid polarizers at oblique angles of incidence", Journal of Applied Physics, 2003, p. 4407 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- X. J. Yu, "Optical wire-grid polarizers at oblique angles of incidence", Journal of Applied Physics (2003), doi:10.1063/1.1559937. OpenAlex metadata CC0; paper not read. doi.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Polarizer (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Polarizer (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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