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Similarly, Fresnel's sine law will apply to the p polarization instead of the s polarization, and his tangent law to the s polarization instead of the p polarization. This switch of polarizations has an analog in the old mechanical theory of light waves (see § History , above).
Fresnel's "plane of polarization", traditionally used in optics, is the plane containing the magnetic vectors (B & H) and the wave-normal. Malus's original "plane of polarization" was the plane containing the magnetic vectors and the ray. (In an isotropic medium, θ = 0 and Malus's plane merges with Fresnel's.)
Circular polarization is a limiting case of elliptical polarization. The other special case is the easier-to-understand linear polarization. All three terms were coined by Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in a memoir read to the French Academy of Sciences on 9 December 1822.
Polarization is an important parameter in areas of science dealing ... by the different Fresnel coefficients for the s- and p ... the p and s polarization ...
By Fresnel's sine law, r s is positive for all angles of incidence with a transmitted ray (since θ t > θ i for dense-to-rare incidence), giving a phase shift δ s of zero. But, by his tangent law, r p is negative for small angles (that is, near normal incidence), and changes sign at Brewster's angle , where θ i and θ t are complementary.
By Malus's definition, the plane of polarization of a ray was the plane of the ray and the optic axis if the ray was ordinary, or the perpendicular plane (containing the ray) if the ray was extraordinary. In Fresnel's model, the direction of vibration was normal to the plane of polarization.
The Fresnel–Arago laws are three laws which summarise some of the more important properties of interference between light of different states of polarization. Augustin-Jean Fresnel and François Arago , both discovered the laws, which bear their name.
When the two polarization states are relative to the direction of a surface (usually found with Fresnel reflection), they are usually termed s and p. This distinction between Cartesian and s–p polarization can be negligible in many cases, but it becomes significant for achieving high contrast and with wide angular spreads of the incident light.