Gyrotropic Absorbing Crystals of Lower Symmetries

The specific features of polarization of natural waves propagating in crystals near their optical axes have been studied successively in transparent gyrotropic, absorbing, and gyrotropic absorbing crystals of classes 222, 2, 1, m, and mm2. The dependences of the ellipticities of natural waves and the azimuth of polarization of light transmitted through a crystalline plate (the case of normal incidence) on the orientation of the optical-axis plane of the plate axes with respect to the normal to surface are calculated for these crystals. These characteristics are compared for crystals of axial and planal classes with two different orientations of the optical-axis plane with respect to the symmetry elements of crystal.