Plane Waves in Anisotropic Materials without Optical Rotation

1 Plane Waves in Anisotropic Materials without Optical Rotation 

Propagation of light through a uniaxial, anisotropic material. 

Since the Maxwell s equations are linear in E and H, the solution to this problem is easily solved by decomposing the fields into their x and y components. The electric field is 

As will be discussed further in Chapter 2, this is an example of a birefringent material, with birefringence, A = hv Clearly, two other birefringences, An and 

can be defined for this sample and would be measured by sending the light along the x and y axes, respectively. 

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