Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 31, 2025

A Photonic System for Generating Unconditional Polarization-Entangled Photons Based on Multiple Quantum Interference
Published on: September 5, 2019
Three-dimensional polarization of fields radiated by partially coherent electromagnetic cylindrical sources
Abstract:
Partially coherent electromagnetic sources with cylindrical symmetry and infinite extent radiating outward are introduced. Their 3 × 3 cross-spectral density matrix is given through expansions of the field components in terms of basis functions related to the Hankel functions. The spectral density and the three-dimensional degree of polarization of such sources and the fields they radiate are examined. Several examples are presented and discussed. Among them, a class of cylindrical sources whose coherent vector modes coincide with the above basis functions is defined and studied.
Related Concept Videos
Plane Electromagnetic Waves I
The EM field is assumed...
Potential Due to a Polarized Object
Electromagnetic Wave Equation
However, although electric and magnetic fields were first introduced as mathematical constructs to simplify the description of mutual forces between charges, a natural question emerges from Maxwell's equations:...
Polar and Cylindrical Coordinates
Electric Field of a Non Uniformly Charged Sphere
Consider a non-uniformly charged sphere, for which the density of charge depends only on the distance from a point in space and not on the direction. Such a sphere has a spherically symmetrical charge distribution. Here, the electric...
Gauss's Law: Cylindrical Symmetry

