Faraday Rotation -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Physics (original) (raw)

Given two rays of circularly polarized light, one with left-hand and the other with right-hand polarization, the one with the polarization in the same direction as the electricity of the magnetizing current travels with greater velocity. I.e., the plane of linearly polarized light is rotated when a magnetic field is applied parallel to the propagation direction. The empirical angle of rotation is given by

where V is called the Verdet constant (and has units of arc minutes cm-1 Gauss-1). In the quantum mechanical description, it occurs because imposition of a magnetic field alters the energy levels (cf. Zeeman effect).

Circular Polarization, Optical Activity, Optical Rotation, Zeeman Effect

References