SKEDSOFT

Physics For Engineers - 1

Electric field for eq 2 in the new coordinate system
                   

   or                     .....................(4)

where represents the component of the electric field along x' and that of along y' for the eq 4 (which is representing the same field of eq 2).

In all the above representation , the direction of electric field was always fixed, ie it is neither changing with time nor changing with the location and amplitude of the wave is also constant. Such waves are called as linearly polarized or plane polarized wave.

From equation 3 or from equation4, a general form of linearly polarized light is
                 
     or                               .............................. (5)

Where the resultant amplitude of the wave is and the direction of electric field is always making an angle with x-axis (as shown in fig 3 a) given by .

Figure 3.