Fundamentals of Polarized Light: A Statistical Optics Approach

HISTORIAL SURVEY OF UNDERSTANDING OF POLARIZED LIGHT. First Period: Early Ideas and Observations-from Bartholinus to Stokes. Second Period: The Electromagnetic Nature of Light. Third Period: The Coherence and Quantum Properties of Light. PRELIMINARIES TO A CLASSICAL RADIATION FIELD THEORY. The Basic Differential Equations and Boundary Conditions. Invariance Transformations. Monochromatic Plane Wave. POLARIZATION AND THE RADIATION FIELD. Elementary Concepts and Definitions. Geometric Representations of Partially Polarized Light. Statistics of the Radiation Field. Entropy of the Radiation Field. INTERACTION OF RADIATION WITH LINEAR MEDIA. Jones and Mueller Polarization Transfer Matrix Methods. Polarization Effects at Dielectric Interfaces. Polarized Light and Symmetry Transformations. Random Media. APPLICATIONS TO SELECTED TOPICS. Electromagnetic Propagation in Linear Anisotropic Media. Optical Polarizing Components. Measurement of Stokes Parameters. Measurement of Jones and Mueller Polarization Matrices. Appendices. Indexes.