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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. Circular birefringence and circular dichroism are the manifestations of optical activity.
Kerr rotation and Kerr ellipticity are changes in the polarization of incident light which comes in contact with a gyromagnetic material. Kerr rotation is a rotation in the plane of polarization of transmitted light, and Kerr ellipticity is the ratio of the major to minor axis of the ellipse traced out by elliptically polarized light on the plane through which it propagates.
A polarimeter [1] is a scientific instrument used to measure optical rotation: the angle of rotation caused by passing linearly polarized light through an optically active substance. [ 2 ] Some chemical substances are optically active, and linearly polarized (uni-directional) light will rotate either to the left (counter-clockwise) or right ...
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.
Specific rotation is an intensive property, distinguishing it from the more general phenomenon of optical rotation. As such, the observed rotation (α) of a sample of a compound can be used to quantify the enantiomeric excess of that compound, provided that the specific rotation ([α]) for the enantiopure compound is known.
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.
In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics that studies interference, diffraction, polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric optics is not valid. This usage tends not to include effects such as quantum noise in optical communication, which is studied in the sub-branch of coherence ...
Today, the pure science of optics is called optical science or optical physics to distinguish it from applied optical sciences, which are referred to as optical engineering. Prominent subfields of optical engineering include illumination engineering , photonics , and optoelectronics with practical applications like lens design , fabrication and ...