Semiconductor Optics Homework #4 due date: 5:00pm, May 23, 2022

1. Suppose 800 W/m2 of natural light is incident perpendicularly on a sheet of HN-22

polarizer. Describe the light leaving the filter. What is its irradiance? (8.14)

2. (a) If natural light of flux density Ii passes through two sheets of HN-38 whose
transmission axes are parallel, what will be the flux density of the emerging beam? (b)
What will be the irradiance of the emerging beam if the analyzer of the previous problem
is rotated 45°? (8.15, 8.16)

3. Natural light of irradiance Ii is incident normally on an HN-32 polarizer. (a) How much
light emerges from it? (b) A second identical polarizer is placed parallel to and behind the
first. How much light emerges when the two transmission axes are at 45°? (8.20)

4. Light reflected from a glass plate (ng = 1.60) immersed in ethyl alcohol (ne = 1.36) is found
to be completely linearly polarized. At what angle will the partially polarized beam be
transmitted into the plate. (8.46)

5. A beam of natural light is incident on an air–glass interface (nti = 1.5) at 40° . Compute the
degree of polarization of the reflected light. (8.47)

6. A narrow beam of light strikes the surface of a block of clear material and it is determined
that the reflected light is totally polarized. If the total reflectance is 10% find the
transmittance at the air–block interface. (8.51)

7. Right-circular light passes through a λ/4 retarder whose fast axis is vertical. Describe the
emerging polarization state. Did the polarization state shift one quarter of the way around
the circle in Fig. 8.42? (8.58)

8. Left-circular light of wavelength 590 nm traveling in the z-direction is to be converted

into right-circular light by passing perpendicularly through a plate of quartz. The quartz
has been cut and polished so that the optic axis is in the y-direction (no = 1.544 3, ne =
1.553 4) and the face of the plate is the xy-plane. (a) What is the direction of the fast axis?
(b) How thick, at minimum, should the plate be? (8.65)

9. The specific rotatory power for sucrose dissolved in water at 20 °C (λ0 = 589.3 nm) is
+66.45° per 10 cm of path traversed through a solution containing 1 g of active substance
(sugar) per cm3 of solution. A vertical P-state (sodium light) enters at one end of a 1.2-m
tube containing 1000 cm3 of solution, of which 10 g is sucrose. At what orientation will
the P-state emerge? (8.71)

10. Write the normalized Jones vectors for each of the following waves, and describe
completely the state of polarization of each.

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Semiconductor Optics Homework #4 due date: 5:00pm, May 23, 2022

11. An important application of the QWP is its use in an “isolator.” For example, to prevent
feedback from interferometers into lasers by front-surface, back reflections, the beam is
first allowed to pass through a combination of linear polarizer and QWP, with OA of the
QWP at 45° to the TA of the polarizer. Consider what happens to such light after reflection
from a plane surface and transmission back through this optical device.

12. Find the character of polarized light after passing in turn through (a) a half-wave plate
with slow axis at 45°; (b) a linear polarizer with transmission axis at 45°; (c) a quarter-
wave plate with slow axis horizontal. Assume the original light to be linearly polarized
vertically. Use the matrix approach and analyze the final Jones vector to describe the
product light. (Hint: First find the effect of the HWP alone on the incident light.)