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Circularly polarized light at the mirror: Caveats and opportunities
Francesco Zinna1, Gennaro Pescitelli1, Lorenzo Di Bari1
1Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Abstract:
Moving from the simple concept that reflection onto a mirror surface changes the handedness of circularly polarized light, we describe what happens to the emergent polarization in two different cases after reflection on a back mirror. In the first case, a regular emitter is taken into account, where reflection has the effect to destroy the emergent polarization. In the second case, we show what could happen when a hypothetical apparently non-reciprocal emitting material undergoes a similar experiment. These simple concepts have important implications in the design of efficient circularly polarized emitting devices.
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