Linearly Polarized Light and Jones Calculus

If you've felt like the content here has been helpful, please consider donating to UCI with a mention of this channel: https://give.uci.edu/ Probably the most beautiful and elegant way to understand polarization is by using the 'Jones Calculus'. Basically, you assume a direction for your traveling wave, and then just write down how much is polarized in the directions orthogonal to that. The real power of the Jones calculus comes when you start needing to deal with circularly polarized light, waveplates, and rotated optical elements. This is part of my graduate series on optoelectronics / photonics, and is based primarily on Coldren's book on Lasers as well as graduate-level coursework I have taken in the EECS department at UC Berkeley. Hope you found this video helpful, please post in the comments below anything I can do to improve future videos, or suggestions you have for future videos.