A Rotating Waveplate Polarization Analyzer

S

1

0

S

2

0

S

3

0

This Demonstration lets you create any type of polarized light to see the intensity as the light passes through a polarization analyzer consisting of a rotating waveplate followed by a fixed linear polarizer. There is a constraint on the Stokes vector for partially or completely polarized light:

2

S

0

≤

2

S

1

+

2

S

2

+

2

S

3

; if you select

S

1

,

S

2

, and

S

3

that do not fulfill the constraint, an error message is shown.

S

0

is set to be 1.

The most common types of light and their Stokes vectors can be set as follows: horizontally polarized light: (1,0,0); vertically polarized light: (-1,0,0), 45° light: (0,1,0); -45° light (0,-1,0); right circularly polarized light (0,0,1); and left circularly polarized light (0,0,-1).