Lesson 6 – Polarization II

When light is incident at a specific angle onto a material interface, a special condition of Snell’s Law is constructed where all p-polarized light is completely transmitted and only s-polarized light is transmitted. This specific angle of is known as Brewster’s angle. This creates unique ways to polarize light in an optical system.

Certain optical materials, like crystals, have atomic or molecular structures that transmit s- and p-polarized light at different speeds, with different refractive indexes for each polarization state. This is known as birefringence and can be used to create optics called waveplates that change the polarization state of light when light transmits through.