1941/07/01 by R. Clark Jones · 14 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Optical Polarization and Ellipsometry #Optical and Acousto-Optic Technologies #Advanced optical system design
paper · doi:10.1364/josa.31.000488
The effect of a plate of anisotropic material, such as a crystal, on a collimated beam of polarized light may always be represented mathematically as a linear transformation of the components of the electric vector of the light. The effect of a retardation plate, of an anisotropic absorber (plate of tourmaline; Polaroid sheeting), or of a crystal or solution possessing optical activity, may therefore be represented as a matrix which operates on the electric vector of the incident light. Since a plane wave of light is characterized by the phases and amplitudes of the two transverse components of the electric vector, the matrices involved are two-by-two matrices, with matrix elements which are in general complex. A general theory of optical systems containing plates of the type mentioned is developed from this point of view.