Inaugural-dissertation. / "Lebenslauf," after p. 45.

Polarization aberrations are the variations of amplitude, phase, polarization and retardance associated with ray paths through optical systems. This dissertation develops methods for calculating the polarization aberrations of radially symmetric systems of weak polarizers, systems like lenses, telescopes and microscopes. The instrumental polarization in these systems arises from weak polarization effects occurring near normal incidence at glass, metal and thin film coated interfaces. Polarized light and polarizers are treated using the Jones calculus. Weak polarizers, optical elements with small polarization effects, are treated by expanding the Fresnel equations and thin film equations into a Taylor series. Methods are given for calculating the Taylor series coefficients for a multilayer coated interface whose polarization performance is known, for example from a thin film design program. Equations are derived for the propagation of polarized light through optical systems. Weak polarizers are shown to be very weakly order dependent; this greatly facilitates the calculation of the effect of a sequence of weak polarizers. The dominant terms are order independent polarization terms which are readily calculated. The order dependent portion can be systematically evaluated as higher order terms. The instrumental polarization, being a function of angle of incidence, is different for different rays through the system. Thus an optical system is a spatially varying polarizer. The instrumental polarization associated with a single surface is often well approximated as a "parabolic" polarizer. The instrumental polarization function is calculated as a Taylor series Jones matrix about the optical axis as a function of object and pupil coordinates. The resulting spatial variations of the instrumental polarization function bear a strong resemblance to the wavefront aberrations, since both arise from fundamental geometrical considerations. In particular, there are terms in the weak linear polarization and in the weak retardance of radially symmetric systems which strongly resemble defocus, tilt and piston error. A polarization aberration expansion is defined to second order in the object and pupil coordinates. A method is derived for calculating the polarization aberration coefficients for a sequence of radially symmetric surfaces from the Taylor series representation of the polarization associated with the individual interfaces.

Polarization dependent photoluminescence (PL) study in 10K of m-plane III-nitrides was discussed in this thesis. Two samples were investigated: m-plane GaN film grown on m-sapphire substrate and m-plane InGaN film grown on m-GaN/m-sapphire substrate by plasma -assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE). Polarized luminescence characteristics were told by polarization dependent PL spectra in these two samples. Circular polarized, linear polarized and unpolarized laser sources were used to excite the samples. The results showed the PL intensity along the a-axis of the sample was stronger than along the c-axis with a polarization ratio with 65%; moreover, the peak positions showed polarization independent characteristic under a low temperature environment with 10K.

No description available.

In this thesis we present multi-waveband imaging polarimetry and spectropolarime- try of the starburst galaxy M82 and multi-waveband imaging polarimetry of the active galaxy NGC 5128. A review of previous studies of these galaxies is given. The imaging polarimetry of M82 in broadband filters reveals a polarization pattern that is due to scattering of light from the galactic disk and a nuclear starburst component. The Hq filter polarimetry shows a centrosymmetric pattern from the nuclear component only. The spectropolarimetry of the southern filaments of M82 shows evidence for a mixture of scattering and intrinsic emission from the walls of a superwind blown cavity. Only the Hɑ systemic component of M82 is seen in polarized intensity, the blueshifted component is due to intrinsic emission only. NGC 5128 displays a polarization pattern in its dust lane which is produced by extinction due to aligned non-spherical dust grains in a magnetic field. The wavelength dependence of the polarization in the dust lane is found to follow a Serkowski curve in the central regions.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 1922. / Reprinted from Journal of the Optical Society of America and Review of scientific instruments, VI, January, 1922.

Thesis (M. Sc.) -- University of the Western Cape, 2008. / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 68-70).

Inaug.-Diss.--Breslau.

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 57).

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-139).