Question

Most popular application of wave plates is that they can act as polarization rotators when the phase retardation is a (Half-Wave Plate, HWP). Show from Jones matrices that linearly polarized light after passing through a HWP is still linearly polarized but with a different direction of polarization. What is the angle of rotation for linearly polarized light with an inclination angle of 0 (e.g., relative to the fast axis FA)?

Answer 1

Answer :- Jones matrices can be written asi I cos 20 Sin 20 sin 20 Tchall wave plate) - Los Rol (0 refers to the angle. the fast axis makes with respect to the x-axis) (linearly polarized along x-dimension) (linearly polarized along y-direction) At O=45° Jones matrix for the half-wave plate reduces to To 17 1 o The half-wave plate operating on horizontally polarized y (x-direction) light giver, ro (vertically polarized light) (along y direction) . The linearly polarized light after passing through an Hup is still linearly polarized but with a different direction of polarization (proved) I Jones matrix for linearly polarized light at angle & from the x-axis is, I cosa i I sin a [i:10")- () Constantiny polarized sur on it will give Half-wave plate (fast axis at 450) operating F allout (ang )

:. The result gives the same linearly polarized light at angle & with y-axis. . At an angle O, the light will be again rotat by 7/2, it doesn't (angle of rotation) depend on the angle it makes with the fast axis before falling on Half-wave plate.