Electromagnetic waves and circular dichroism:
an animated tutorial

Table of contents

• I. Basic concepts: Electromagnetic waves and types of polarization (click here first!)
  • Plane-polarized waves 1.
  • Plane-polarized waves 2.
  • Superposition of plane-polarized waves 1.
  • Superposition of plane-polarized waves 2.
  • Superposition of plane-polarized waves 3.
  • Circularly polarized waves
  • Superposition of circularly polarized waves
• II. Interaction of light and matter
  • Plane-polarized waves in an absorbing medium
  • Circularly polarized waves in an absorbing medium
  • Plane-polarized waves in a refracting medium
  • Circularly polarized waves in a refracting medium
  • Plane-polarized waves in a medium showing circular dichroism
  • Plane-polarized waves in a medium showing circular birefringence
  • Plane-polarized waves in a medium showing both circular dichroism and circular birefringence
• How were these animations produced?

You can download all files of this demonstration material packed in a single PKZIP archive. Unzip it on your computer in an empty directory and view the file edemo0.htm in your browser. In this way, you can view the whole demonstration locally, without connecting to the Internet.

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