Polarization of light

Summary

The polarization of light describes how its electric field oscillates in the plane transverse to the direction of travel. For monochromatic light the tip of the field vector traces an ellipse, the polarization ellipse. This ellipse may degenerate into a line segment, or it may be a circle. Accordingly light is linearly, circularly or elliptically polarized; light whose polarization varies randomly is unpolarized or partially polarized. Polarization is described by Jones vectors for fully polarized light and by Stokes parameters in general.