Polarizing Beam Splitter

A very good question!

I'm assuming that the circularly polarized beam is split into two beams that are 90° out. I assume the same is true for the other configuration.

If you want to suss this out for yourself, get a couple of cheap polarized filters with known orientation and use them to check the two beams.

Hi,

think about your circular input be composed of two linear inputs out of phase 90 degrees.

Think about any linear input resolved along the transmitting and the reflecting direction.

The component in the transmitting direction will be transmitted, naturally.

Play with the vectors to see the possible results.

Look into an optics book: "Hecht" has written a good one.

RHABE

I think I know "Hecht''s" big brother. The point is that most discussions about photons has to do with their electrical fields, while thier magnetic feilds are ignored.

Hi Vermin,

why is optical thinking concentrated on electrical fields?

May be we have all the electrically insulating nonmagnetic materials where the dielectric constant is important but the relative permeablity is more or less very near to 1?

Do you know any magnetic material that is used for its magnetic characteristics at optical frequencies?

I doubt that microwave garnets are useful to that frequency range, but I don't know.

Would be interesting for optical computing.

RHABE

I think that's a pretty good answer to your own question!

circular polarization is the sum of 2 linear perpendicular polarizations, with a relative phase of lambda/2. 45° linear polarization is the same, but with phases accorded in the end, your output will be the same, in terms of beam intensity: half the input.