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Huygens principle of double refraction, named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, explains the phenomenon of double refraction observed in uniaxial anisotropic material such as calcite. When unpolarized light propagates in such materials (along a direction different from the optical axis ), it splits into two different rays, known as ...
It is an extension of Huygens–Fresnel principle, which describes each point on a wavefront as a spherical wave source. The equivalence of the imaginary surface currents are enforced by the uniqueness theorem in electromagnetism , which dictates that a unique solution can be determined by fixing a boundary condition on a system.
Polarization was discovered — but not named or understood — by Christiaan Huygens, as he investigated the double refraction of "Iceland crystal" (transparent calcite, now called Iceland spar). The essence of his discovery, published in his Treatise on Light (1690), was as follows. When a ray (meaning a narrow beam of light) passes through ...
Following his remarks on the propagation medium and the speed of light, Huygens gives a geometric illustration of the wavefront, the foundation of what became known as Huygens’ Principle. His principle of propagation is a demonstration of how a wave of light (or rather a pulse) emanating from a point also results in smaller wavelets: [12]
The experimental method called photoelasticity used for analyzing stress distribution in solids is based on the same principle. There has been recent research on using stress-induced birefringence in a glass plate to generate an optical vortex and full Poincare beams (optical beams that have every possible polarization state across a cross ...
Created Date: 8/30/2012 4:52:52 PM
The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) states that every point on a wavefront is itself the source of spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from different points mutually interfere. [1] The sum of these spherical wavelets forms a new wavefront.
Treating a point on the path as a source is the minimum requirement of Huygens' principle, and is part of the explanation of Fermat's principle. But it can also be shown that the geometric construction by which Huygens tried to apply his own principle (as distinct from the principle itself) is simply an invocation of Fermat's principle. [4]