正交偏振干涉的矢量光场分析和检测

VECTOR LIGHT FIELD ANALYSIS AND DETETION OF ORTHOGONAL POLARIZATION INTERFERENCE

在大学物理中,光的干涉和衍射现象是描述光的粒子性和波动性非常常见的内容。那么光的干涉需满足相干条件,即两束光具有相同的偏振态、相同的频率和固定的相位差。因此,在标量衍射理论中,完全正交偏振的光不能够发生干涉现象。为拓展和探究正交偏振态下两束光相遇时光场的矢量变化,本文构建了基于马赫-曾德尔配置的正交偏振光(即正交线偏振和正交圆偏振)相干涉而产生的光场,利用检偏器检测光场的矢量特征及条纹分布情况。结果表明正交偏振光相干涉产生了周期性的矢量光场。该研究能够帮助学生更加直观的掌握波片及偏振片调制不同偏振态的光束并实现矢量光场的检测和分析。

In college physics,the interference and diffraction phenomena of light are very common contents to describe the particle and wave properties of light.So the interference of light needs to meet the coherence condition,that is,two beams of light have the same polarization state,the same frequency,and a fixed phase difference.Therefore,in scalar diffraction theory,completely orthogonal polarized light cannot undergo interference phenomena.To expand and explore the vector changes of the interference field when two beams of light meet under orthogonal polarization state,a light field generated by the interference of orthogonal polarized light(i.e.orthogonal linear polarization and orthogonal circular polarization)based on Mach-Zehnder configuration is constructed here.A polarizer is used to detect the vector features and fringes distribution of the light field.The results demonstrate that orthogonal polarized light interference generates periodic vector light fields.This study can help college students more intuitively understand the modulation of beams with different polarization states by wave plates and polarizers,and achieve the detection and analysis of vector light fields.