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Polarization


Ashish

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I have a follow-up question on polarization of light. Assume I want to polarize microwaves with a metal grate. Assume the grate is oriented such that the bars of the grate are vertically aligned. Staying in the definition above: What will be the polarization of the beam of microwaves after the grate - and why?

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I think... Perpendicular to the grating, the E field induced a charge in the grating along it's axis, and gets absorbed through non-radiative damping. I wonder though about the diffraction through these slits, or if they're below the diffraction limit, the surface plasmon polaritons you would create and their associated fields...

 

I will check with a microwave physicist in the morning ;)

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Apply the boundary conditions. The perpendicular component of the field has to go to zero for a conductor where there is no net charge, and the parallel component suffers no discontinuity. This assumes that the perpendicular direction can't support the wave, i.e. it's smaller than the wavelength.

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