Birefringence and Dichroism

Birefringence and Dichroism of the QED Vacuum

In the presence of a strong external field, the vacuum reacts, becoming magnetized and polarized. The index of refraction, magnetic permeability, and dielectric constant of the vacuum are straightforward to calculate using quantum electrodynamic one-loop corrections [1–6]. In this paper, we calculate the magnetic permeability and dielectric tensors of an external electric or magnetic field of a...

Imaging linear birefringence and dichroism in cerebral amyloid pathologies.

New advances in polarized light microscopy were used to image Congo red-stained cerebral amyloidosis in sharp relief. The rotating-polarizer method was used to separate the optical effects of transmission, linear birefringence, extinction, linear dichroism, and orientation of the electric dipole transition moments and to display them as false-color maps. These effects are typically convolved in...

A complex-polarization-propagator protocol for magneto-chiral axial dichroism and birefringence dispersion.

A computational protocol for magneto-chiral dichroism and magneto-chiral birefringence dispersion is presented within the framework of damped response theory, also known as complex polarization propagator theory, at the level of time-dependent Hartree-Fock and time-dependent density functional theory. Magneto-chiral dichroism and magneto-chiral birefringence spectra in the (resonant) frequency ...

Optical birefringence and dichroism of cuprate superconductors in the THz regime.

The presence of optical polarization anisotropies, such as Faraday or Kerr effects, linear birefringence, and magnetoelectric birefringence are evidence for broken symmetry states of matter. The recent discovery of a Kerr effect using near-IR light in the pseudogap phase of the cuprates can be regarded as a strong evidence for a spontaneous symmetry breaking and the existence of an anomalous lo...

Monoclinic Optical Constants, Birefringence, and Dichroism of Slanted Titanium Nanocolumns Determined by Generalized Ellipsometry