Inhibited reflection in uniaxial crystals

Abstract

When an ordinary or extraordinary ray that propagates through a birefringent crystal is reflected it gives rise to two reflected rays whose directions may be calculated with formulas similar to Snell's law for refraction. When the reflection angle is greater than the incidence angle there is a critical angle for which the reflected ray is grazing, and for values of the incidence angle greater than this critical value the reflected ray no longer exists. We call this phenomenon inhibited reflection. We show how the critical angles may be calculated, and an experiment that visualizes the phenomenon shows good agreement with theory.

General polarized ray-tracing method for inhomogeneous uniaxially anisotropic media

“…(10). In addition, it is convenient to use the geometrical properties of the optical indicatrix to derive the expressions for the polarization vectors: For ordinary waves, the wave normal is defined p o = n o p , with p a unit vector.…”

High-Q UV whispering gallery mode resonators made of an angle-cut BBO crystal

“…This value is very close to the ordinary index of refraction for BBO (n o = 1.646, while n e = 1.531). This implies that the WGM polarization could be defined by the ordinary polarization direction of the crystal all around the circumference, which can be due to the inhibited reflection phenomenon in strongly birefringent crystals [7]. In conclusion, we have fabricated for the first time the WGM resonators from BBO crystals and also demonstrated for the first time high Q WGMs in the UV wavelength range.…”

Experimental characterization of an uniaxial angle cut whispering gallery mode resonator

“…The energy distribution between these two rays is described by generalized Fresnel coefficients [28]. For close to glancing incidence the so called inhibited reflection [27] can occur. In a positive crystal, where n e > n o , an incident extraordinary polarized ray will no longer couple to the ordinary polarization and only one (extraordinary polarized) reflected ray will appear.…”