Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Physics

The thesis deals with the polarization-sensitive optical elements and their effect on optical measurements. These elements, while are not classified as polarization elements, introduce changes in the polarization state in optical polarization Systems. In Systems of un-polarized light, the presence of polarization-sensitive elements like dielectric or metallic reflectors, surface layers, stressed Windows or lenses, fibers, gratings, detectors and others, create polarization effects that may introduce errors in experimental results. The interaction of these optical elements with light may introduce different polarization modifications (phase retardance, birefringence, depolarization, changes in the degree of polarization, rotation in the plane of polarization of plane polarized light or changes in the polarization ellipse).These modifications and their effects in optical measurements are studied in this work. Chapter l presents an overview ofpolarized light that include defining different states of polarization, production of polarized light, polarization elements and mathematical treatment of polarized light. In chapter 2, we have dealt with polarization-sensitive elements and discussed their effects in optical Systems. It is shown that starting from the light source which is usually the first optical element, polarization effects Start to appear and is continuously modified as the light passes through some elements. If the detector is the last element and is sensitive to polarization, additional modification will be introduced. Such detector introduces error in intensity measurements

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