Polarimetry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Synthetic aperture radar image of Death Valley colored using polarimetry.

Polarimetry is the measurement and interpretation of the polarization of transverse waves,

most notably electromagnetic waves, such as radio or light waves. Typically polarimetry is
done on electromagnetic waves that have traveled through or have been reflected, refracted,
or diffracted by some material in order to characterize that object.[1][2]

Contents
1 Applications
2 Equipment
o 2.1 Astronomical polarimetry
3 Measuring optical rotation
4 References
5 External links

Applications
Polarimetry of thin films and surfaces is commonly known as ellipsometry.

Polarimetry is used in remote sensing applications, such as planetary science and weather
radar.

Polarimetry can also be included in computational analysis of waves. For example, radars
often consider wave polarization in post-processing to improve the characterization of the
targets. In this case, polarimetry can be used to estimate the fine texture of a material, help
resolve the orientation of small structures in the target, and, when circularly-polarized
antennas are used, resolve the number of bounces of the received signal (the chirality of
circularly polarized waves alternates with each reflection).

Equipment
A polarimeter is the basic scientific instrument used to make these measurements, although
this term is rarely used to describe a polarimetry process performed by a computer, such as is
done in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar.

Polarimetry can be used to measure various optical properties of a material, including linear
birefringence, circular birefringence (also known as optical rotation or optical rotary
dispersion), linear dichroism, circular dichroism and scattering.[3] To measure these various
properties, there have been many designs of polarimeters. Some are archaic and some are in
current use. The most sensitive polarimeters are based on interferometers, while more
conventional polarimeters are based on arrangements of polarising filters, wave plates or
other devices.

Astronomical polarimetry

Light given off by a star is un-polarized, i.e. the direction of oscillation of the light wave is
random. However, when the light is reflected off the atmosphere of a planet, the light waves
interact with the molecules in the atmosphere and they are polarized.[4]

By analyzing the polarization in the combined light of an extrasolar planet and its star (about
one part in a million), these measurements can in principle be made with very high sensitivity
also on ground-based observatories, as polarimetry is not limited by the stability of the
Earth's atmosphere. It is akin to transiting of a planet in front of its star.

Measuring optical rotation

Optically active samples, such as solutions of chiral molecules, often exhibit circular
birefringence. Circular birefringence causes rotation of the polarization of plane polarized
light as it passes through the sample.

In ordinary light, the vibrations occur in all planes perpendicular to the direction of
propagation. When light passes through a Nicol prism its vibrations in all directions except
the direction of axis of the prism are cut off. The light emerging from the prism is said to be
plane polarised because its vibration is in one direction. If two Nicol prisms are placed with
their polarization planes parallel to each other, then the light rays emerging out of the first
prism will enter the second prism. As a result, no loss of light is observed. However, if the
second prism is rotated by an angle of 90, the light emerging from the first prism is stopped
by the second prism and no light emerges. The first prism is usually called the polarizer and
the second prism is called the analyser.

A simple polarimeter to measure this rotation consists of a long tube with flat glass ends, into
which the sample is placed. At each end of the tube is a Nicol prism or other polarizer. Light
is shone through the tube, and the prism at the other end, attached to an eye-piece, is rotated
to arrive at the region of complete brightness or that of half-dark, half-bright or that of
complete darkness. The angle of rotation is then read from a scale. The same phenomenon is
observed after an angle of 180. The specific rotation of the sample may then be calculated.
Temperature can affect the rotation of light, which should be accounted for in the
calculations.

where:

[]T is the specific rotation.

T is the temperature.
is the wavelength of light.
is the angle of rotation.
l is the length of the polarimeter tube.
is the mass concentration of solution.

References
1. Mishchenko, M.I.; Yatskiv, Y.S.; Rosenbush, V.K.; Videen, G. (Eds.), ed. (2011).
Polarimetric Detection, Characterization and Remote Sensing, Proceedings of the
NATO Advanced Study Institute on Special Detection Technique (Polarimetry) and
Remote Sensing Yalta, Ukraine 20 September - 1 October 2010, Series: NATO
Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security (1st Edition. ed.).
2. Jaap Tinbergen Jaap Tinbergen (2007). Astronomical Polarimetry. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-01858-7.
3. V. Tuchin (2000). Tissue Optics Light Scattering Methods and Instruments for
Medical Diagnosis. Society of Photo Optical. ISBN 0-8194-3459-0.
4. Schmid, H. M.; Beuzit, J.-L.; Feldt, M. et al. (2006). "Search and investigation of
extra-solar planets with polarimetry". Direct Imaging of Exoplanets: Science &
Techniques. Proceedings of the IAU Colloquium #200 1 (C200): 165170.
Bibcode:2006dies.conf..165S. doi:10.1017/S1743921306009252.

External links
Polariscope - Gemstone Buzz instrument to measure optical properties.
EU Project NanoCharM [1]

[hide]

v
t
e

Exoplanetology
Exoplanet
Main topics
Planetary system
 Methods of detecting exoplanets

Carbon planet
Coreless planet
Desert planet
Ice planet
Iron planet
Terrestrial Lava planet
Ocean planet
Sub-Earth
Super-Earth
Massive solid planet

Chthonian planet
Eccentric Jupiter
Helium planet
Hot Jupiter
Types
Hot Neptune
Gas giant Ice giant
Mini-Neptune
Gas dwarf
Puffy planet
Super-Jupiter

Brown dwarf
Circumbinary planet
Double planet
Other Mesoplanet
types Planetar
Protoplanet
Sub-brown dwarf

Nebular hypothesis
Planetary migration
Evolution
Merging stars

Exocomet
Exomoon
Interstellar comet
Rogue planet
Systems Trojan planet
Retrograde planet
Mean-motion resonances
TitiusBode laws

Host stars Herbig Ae/Be

 T Tauri
Subgiant
Yellow giant
Red giant
B
A
Subdwarf B
F - Yellow-white dwarfs
G - Yellow dwarfs
K - Orange dwarfs
M - Red dwarfs
Brown dwarfs
White dwarfs
Pulsar
Binary star
Planets in globular clusters
Extragalactic planet

Direct imaging
o list
Microlensing
o list
Pulsar timing
o list
Radial velocity
Detection
o list
Transit method
o list
Transit-timing variation
Astrometry
Polarimetry

Circumstellar habitable zone

Earth analog
Earth Similarity Index
Habitability Extraterrestrial liquid water
Goldilocks planet
Potentially habitable exoplanets

NASA Exoplanet Archive

Exoplanet Data Explorer
Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
Catalogues
Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems
NASA Star and Exoplanet Database

Exoplanets
Lists
o Discoveries
 o Extremes
o Firsts
o Nearest
o Largest
o Terrestrial candidates
o Kepler
Exoplanetary systems
o Host stars
o Multiplanetary systems
o Stars with proplyds
Unconfirmed exoplanets

Exoplanet phase curves

Exoplanet skies
Other Sudarsky's gas giant classification
Planets in science fiction

Discoveries of exoplanets
Search projects

Categories:

Polarization (waves)
Optical devices

Navigation menu
Create account
Log in

Article
Talk

Read
Edit
View history

Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction

Help
 About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools

What links here

Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export

Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages

Catal
etina
Deutsch
Espaol
Franais
Gaeilge
Italiano

Magyar
Nederlands
Polski
Portugus

Slovenina
/ srpski
Srpskohrvatski /

Edit links

This page was last modified on 28 September 2014 at 21:06.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc., a non-profit organization.
 Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view

Photoelasticity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A picture created using photoelasticity, of plastic utensils

Photoelasticity is an experimental method to determine the stress distribution in a material.

The method is mostly used in cases where mathematical methods become quite cumbersome.
Unlike the analytical methods of stress determination, photoelasticity gives a fairly accurate
picture of stress distribution, even around abrupt discontinuities in a material. The method is
an important tool for determining critical stress points in a material, and is used for
determining stress concentration in irregular geometries.

Contents
1 History
2 Principles
3 Isoclinics and isochromatics
4 Two-dimensional photoelasticity
5 Plane polariscope
6 Circular polariscope
7 Applications
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

History
The photoelastic phenomenon was first described by the Scottish physicist David Brewster[1]
.[2] Photoelasticity developed at the beginning of the twentieth century with the works of
E.G.Coker and L.N.G. Filon of University of London. Their book Treatise on Photoelasticity
published in 1930 by the Cambridge Press became a standard text on the subject. Between
1930 and 1940 many other books in Russian, German and French appeared on the subject.

At the same time much development occurred in the field. Great improvements were
achieved in the technique and the equipment was simplified. With the improvement in
technology the scope of photoelasticity was extended to three-dimensional state of stress.
Many practical problems were solved using photoelasticity, and it soon became popular. A
number of photoelastic laboratories were established in educational institutions and
industries.
With the advent of digital polariscope using light-emitting diodes, continuous monitoring of
structures under load became possible. This led to the development of dynamic
photoelasticity. Dynamic photoelasticity has contributed greatly to the study of complex
phenomena such as fracture of materials.

Principles

Tension lines in plastic protractor seen under cross-polarized light.

The method is based on the property of birefringence, as exhibited by certain transparent

materials. Birefringence is the phenomenon in which a ray of light passing through a
birefringent material experiences two refractive indices. The property of birefringence (or
double refraction) is observed in many optical crystals. Upon the application of stresses,
photoelastic materials exhibit the property of birefringence, and the magnitude of the
refractive indices at each point in the material is directly related to the state of stresses at that
point. Information such as maximum shear stress and its orientation are available by
analyzing the birefringence with an instrument called a polariscope.

When a ray of light passes through a photoelastic material, its electromagnetic wave
components are resolved along the two principal stress directions and each component
experiences a different refractive index due to the birefringence. The difference in the
refractive indices leads to a relative phase retardation between the two components.
Assuming a thin specimen made of isotropic materials, where two-dimensional
photoelasticity is applicable. The magnitude of the relative retardation is given by the stress-
optic law:[3]

where is the induced retardation, C is the stress-optic coefficient, t is the specimen

thickness, 1 and 2 are the first and second principal stresses, respectively. The retardation
changes the polarization of transmitted light. The polariscope combines the different
polarization states of light waves before and after passing the specimen. Due to optical
interference of the two waves, a fringe pattern is revealed. The number of fringe order N is
denoted as
which depends on relative retardation. By studying the fringe pattern one can determine the
state of stress at various points in the material.

For materials that do not show photoelastic behavior, it is still possible to study the stress
distribution. The first step is to build a model, using photoelastic materials, which has
geometry similar to the real structure under investigation. The loading is then applied in the
same way to ensure that the stress distribution in the model is similar to the stress in the real
structure.

Isoclinics and isochromatics

Isoclinics are the loci of the points in the specimen along which the principal stresses are in
the same direction.

Isochromatics are the loci of the points along which the difference in the first and second
principal stress remains the same. Thus they are the lines which join the points with equal
maximum shear stress magnitude.[4]

Two-dimensional photoelasticity

Photoelasticity

Photoelasticity can be applied both to three-dimensional and two-dimensional state of stress.

But the application of photoelasticty to the three-dimensional state of stress is more involved
as compared to the state of two-dimensional or plane-stress system. So the present section
deals with application of photoelasticity in investigation of a plane stress system. This
condition is achieved when the thickness of the prototype is much smaller as compared to
dimensions in the plane. Thus one is only concerned with stresses acting parallel to the plane
of the model, as other stress components are zero. The experimental setup varies from
experiment to experiment. The two basic kinds of setup used are plane polariscope and
circular polariscope.

The working principle of two-dimensional photoelasticity allows the measurement of

retardation, which can be converted to the difference between the first and second principal
stress and their orientation. To further get values of each stress component, a technique called
stress-separation is required.[5] Several theoretical and experimental methods are utilized to
provide additional information to solve individual stress components.
Plane polariscope
The setup consists of two linear polarizers and a light source. The light source can either emit
monochromatic light or white light depending upon the experiment. First the light is passed
through the first polarizer which converts the light into plane polarized light. The apparatus is
set up in such a way that this plane polarized light then passes through the stressed specimen.
This light then follows, at each point of the specimen, the direction of principal stress at that
point. The light is then made to pass through the analyzer and we finally get the fringe
pattern. (e/_)

The fringe pattern in a plane polariscope setup consists of both the isochromatics and the
isoclinics. The isoclinics change with the orientation of the polariscope while there is no
change in the isochromatics.

Transmission Circular Polariscope

The same device functions as a plane polariscoe when quarter wave plates are taken aside or
rotated so their axes parallel to polarization axes

Circular polariscope
In a circular polariscope setup two quarter-wave plates are added to the experimental setup of
the plane polariscope. The first quarter-wave plate is placed in between the polarizer and the
specimen and the second quarter-wave plate is placed between the specimen and the analyzer.
The effect of adding the quarter-wave plate after the source-side polarizer is that we get
circularly polarized light passing through the sample. The analyzer-side quarter-wave plate
converts the circular polarization state back to linear before the light passes through the
analyzer.

The basic advantage of a circular polariscope over a plane polariscope is that in a circular
polariscope setup we only get the isochromatics and not the isoclinics. This eliminates the
problem of differentiating between the isoclinics and the isochromatics.

Applications
Photoelasticity has been used for a variety of stress analyses and even for routine use in
design, particularly before the advent of numerical methods, such as for instance finite
elements or boundary elements.[6] Digitization of polariscopy enables fast image acquisition
and data processing, which allows its industrial applications to control quality of
manufacturing process for materials such as glass[7] and polymer.[8] Dentistry utilizes
photoelasticity to analyze strain in denture materials.[9]

Photoelastic model to validate the stiffener model. Isochromatic fringe patterns around a steel
platelet in a photo-elastic two-part epoxy resin.

Photoelasticity can successfully be used to investigate the highly localized stress state within
masonry[10][11] [12] or in proximity of a rigid line inclusion (stiffener) embedded in an elastic
medium.[13] In the former case, the problem is nonlinear due to the contacts between bricks,
while in the latter case the elastic solution is singular, so that numerical methods may fail to
provide correct results. These can be obtained through photoelastic techniques. Dynamic
photoelasticity integrated with high-speed photography is utilized to investigate fracture
behavior in materials.[14] Another important application of the photoelasticity experiments is
to study the stress field around bi-material notches.[15] Bi-material notches exist in many
engineering application like welded or adhesively bonded structures

See also
Acousto-optic modulator
Photoelastic modulator
Polarimetry

References
1. D. Brewster, Experiments on the depolarization of light as exhibited by various
mineral, animal and vegetable bodies with a reference of the phenomena to the
general principle of polarization, Phil. Tras. 1815, pp.29-53.
2. D. Brewster, On the communication of the structure of doubly-refracting crystals to
glass, murite of soda, flour spar, and other substances by mechanical compression and
dilation, Phil. Tras. 1816, pp.156-178.
3. Dally, J.W. and Riley, W.F., Experimental Stress Analysis, 3rd edition, McGraw-Hill
Inc., 1991
4. Ramesh, K., Digital Photoelasticity, Springer, 2000
 5. Fernandez M.S-B., Calderon, J.M.A., Diez, P.M.B and Segura, I.I.C, Stress-
separation techniques in photoelasticity: A review. The Journal of Strain Analysis for
Engineering Design, 2010, 45:1 [doi:10.1243/03093247JSA583]
6. Frocht, M.M., Photoelasticity. J. Wiley and Sons, London, 1965
7. Ajovalasit, A., Petrucci, G., Scafidi, M., RGB photoelasticity applied to the analysis
of membrane residual stress in glass, Measurement Science and Technology, 2012,
23-2, no. 025601
8. Kramer, S., Beiermann, B., Davis, D., Sottos, N., White, S., Moore, J.,
Characterization of mechanochemically active polymers using combined
photoelasticity and fluorescence measurements, SEM Annual Conference and
Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics, 2010, 2, pp.896-907.
9. Fernandes, C.P., Glantz, P.-O.J., Svensson, S.A., Bergmark, A. Reflection
photoelasticity: A new method for studies of clinical mechanics in prosthetic dentistry
Dental Materials, 2003, 19-2, pp.106-117.
10. D. Bigoni and G. Noselli, Localized stress percolation through dry masonry walls.
Part I - Experiments. European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids, 2010, 29, 291-298.
11. D. Bigoni and G. Noselli, Localized stress percolation through dry masonry walls.
Part II - Modelling. European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids, 2010, 29, pp.299-307.
12. Bigoni, D. Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: Bifurcation Theory and Material Instability.
Cambridge University Press, 2012 . ISBN 9781107025417.
13. G. Noselli, F. Dal Corso and D. Bigoni, The stress intensity near a stiffener disclosed
by photoelasticity. International Journal of Fracture, 2010, 166, 91103.
14. Shukla, A., High-speed fracture studies on bimaterial interfaces using photoelasticity -
A review, Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design, 2012, 36-2, 119-142.
15. Ayatollahi, M. R., Mirsayar, M. M., Dehghany, M., Experimental determination of
stress field parameters in bi-material notches using photoelasticity, "Materials &
Design," 2011, 32, 4901-4908.

External links
University of Cambridge Page on Photoelasticity.
Photograph of photoelastic stress pattern using plane-polarized white light.
Laboratory for Physical Modeling of Structures and Photoelasticity (University of
Trento, Italy)

Categories:

Mechanics
Mechanical engineering
Materials science
Optics

Navigation menu
Create account
Log in

Article
Talk
 Read
Edit
View history

Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikimedia Shop

Interaction

Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page

Tools

What links here

Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page

Print/export

Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version

Languages

Catal
Deutsch
Espaol
Franais
Gaeilge
Italiano


Norsk nynorsk
Polski

Trke

Edit links

This page was last modified on 16 October 2014 at 09:16.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc., a non-profit organization.

Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view