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Optical rotation, also known as polarization rotation or circular birefringence, is the rotation of the orientation of the plane of polarization about the optical axis of linearly polarized light as it travels through certain materials.
In all materials the rotation varies with wavelength. The variation is caused by two quite different phenomena. The first accounts in most cases for the majority of the variation in rotation and should not strictly be termed rotatory dispersion. It depends on the fact that optical activity is actually circular birefringence.
Determination of specific rotation: In order to determine a specific rotation of an optically active substance (say, sugar), the polarimeter tube is first filled with pure water and the analyzer is adjusted for equal darkness (both the halves should be equally dark) point. The position of the analyzer is noted with the help of the scale.
Recording optical rotation with a polarimeter: The plane of polarisation of plane polarised light (4) rotates (6) as it passes through an optically active sample (5). This angle is determined with a rotatable polarizing filter (7). In chemistry, specific rotation ([α]) is a property of a chiral chemical compound.
Michael Faraday holding a piece of glass of the type he used to demonstrate the effect of magnetism on polarization of light, c. 1857.. By 1845, it was known through the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Étienne-Louis Malus, and others that different materials are able to modify the direction of polarization of light when appropriately oriented, [4] making polarized light a very powerful tool to ...
A broadband prismatic rotator rotates the linear polarization by 90° using seven internal reflections to induce collinear rotation, as shown in the diagram. [2] The polarization is rotated in the second reflection, but that leaves the beam in a different plane and at a right angle relative to the incident beam.
A Fresnel rhomb is an optical prism that introduces a 90° phase difference between two perpendicular components of polarization, by means of two total internal reflections. If the incident beam is linearly polarized at 45° to the plane of incidence and reflection, the emerging beam is circularly polarized , and vice versa.
Photon polarization is the quantum mechanical description of the classical polarized sinusoidal plane electromagnetic wave. An individual photon can be described as having right or left circular polarization , or a superposition of the two.