Brewster angle, $θ B$

When an unpolarized planar electromagnetic wavefront impinges on a flat dielectric surface, there is a unique angle ( $θ B$ ), commonly referred to as Brewster angle, at which the reflected waves are all polarized into a single plane.

Notes:

Expression for Brewster angle:
$θ B = arctan ⁡ n 2 n 1 = arctan ⁡ ( ɛ 2 ɛ 1 ) 1/2$
where $n 2$ and $n 1$ are the refractive indices of the receiving surface and the initial medium, respectively, and $ɛ 2$ and $ɛ 1$ are the relative static permittivities (formerly called dielectric constants).
For a randomly polarized beam incident at Brewster angle, the electric fields of the reflected and refracted waves are perpendicular to each other
For a wave incident from air on water ( $n = 1.333$ ), glass ( $n = 1.515$ ), and diamond ( $n = 2.417$ ), the Brewster angles are $53$ , $57$ , and $67.5 degrees$ , respectively.

Source:

PAC, 2007, 79, 293 (Glossary of terms used in photochemistry, 3rd edition (IUPAC Recommendations 2006)) on page 310

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IUPAC > Gold Book > math/physics > quantities

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IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997). XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8. https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.

Last update: 2014-02-24; version: 2.3.3.

DOI of this term: https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.BT07336.

Original PDF version: http://www.iupac.org/goldbook/BT07336.pdf. The PDF version is out of date and is provided for reference purposes only. For some entries, the PDF version may be unavailable.

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