B How does polarisation in nature work?

AI Thread Summary
Lights reflecting off horizontal surfaces like roads, water, or snow are horizontally polarized due to the interaction of incoming light with the vibrating electrons in these materials. When vertically polarized light enters water, it bends downwards, causing the electrons to vibrate edge-on and not radiate in the same direction. The polarization phenomenon applies across the electromagnetic spectrum, with horizontal waves inducing easier current flow in parallel wires, leading to coherent wavefronts. In contrast, water's conductivity is more complex, as induced currents are not limited to the surface, affecting the reflection and transmission of light based on the angle of incidence. The discussion highlights the importance of Brewster's Angle in understanding light polarization.
jackiepollock
Messages
11
Reaction score
2
Why are lights reflecting off horizontal surfaces like the road, water, or snow horizontally polarized? How does the process happen?
 
Science news on Phys.org
The shine from water comes from electrons in the water which are vibrating in response to the electric field of the incoming light and causing re-radiation. When a vertically polarised ray of light enters water, it is bent downwards. The charges now vibrate edge-on to the viewer, and do not radiate in their direction.
 
The phenomenon of polarisation is the same over the whole electromagnetic spectrum and often it's useful to think in terms of radio waves and the way they interact. It's very complicated and not intuitive (imo) so here's a noddy explanation which has some holes in it but it carries the main message about how EM waves interact with 'substances'.
A horizontally polarised wave will excite the electrons in a long horizontal wire to oscillate and charges flow 'easily' through the wire when the E field is parallel with the wire. This will cause the wave to be (re-radiated) reflected and a 'coherent' wave front is formed from all along the wire. If the wire is not parallel to the plane of the E field, the 'component' of the E field is not parallel to the wire so less induced current will flow and the re-radiation is less. A wire at right angles to the E field will not disturb the incident wave at all because no current will flow along it. For this reason, a grid of parallel wires makes an excellent polariser for microwaves.
A metal plate conducts current so well that the induced currents can be considered to be just on the (2D) surface; it's a simpler system. Waves of any polarisation tend to be reflected well because there's an 'easy' current path across the surface. But water doesn't conduct like metal and the currents that are induced, don't just flow in the surface (not enough current) and you have to deal with a 3D situation where waves will travel through the water as well as being reflected. The angle of the E vector and the direction of the incident wave affect how much is reflected and how much is transmitted. The horizontal component reflects better than the vertical component. The proportion of reflected and transmitted energy depends on the materials involved and the angle of incidence.

PS there is a common explanation of the mechanism of selecting the polarisation of light which is referred to the 'picket fence' model. You need to read this with care, always because it ain't anything like that in most cases. :smile:
 
  • Like
Likes DaveE, Ibix and joseph707
hutchphd said:
Someone should say the magic words "Brewster's Angle". Here you go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster's_angle
All good stuff. Just a problem knowing where to stop. I remember finding Brewster a big jump in understanding. :smile:
 
Thread 'A quartet of epi-illumination methods'
Well, it took almost 20 years (!!!), but I finally obtained a set of epi-phase microscope objectives (Zeiss). The principles of epi-phase contrast is nearly identical to transillumination phase contrast, but the phase ring is a 1/8 wave retarder rather than a 1/4 wave retarder (because with epi-illumination, the light passes through the ring twice). This method was popular only for a very short period of time before epi-DIC (differential interference contrast) became widely available. So...
I am currently undertaking a research internship where I am modelling the heating of silicon wafers with a 515 nm femtosecond laser. In order to increase the absorption of the laser into the oxide layer on top of the wafer it was suggested we use gold nanoparticles. I was tasked with modelling the optical properties of a 5nm gold nanoparticle, in particular the absorption cross section, using COMSOL Multiphysics. My model seems to be getting correct values for the absorption coefficient and...
Back
Top