Measurement and general modeling of optical rotation in anisotropic crystal

Abstract In this paper a novel method of computing the optical rotation of a parallel plated crystal is presented. The calculation is based on Fourier optics and solves generally the vectorial Maxwell's equations for both the refraction and propagation. It does not require the paraxial approximation, instead, the incident beam may have complex shape, not only a single plane wave. The medium may be anisotropic and optically active. We compare the simulation and experimental results which agree well within the error limit of the measurement. The comparison of the results enabled us to determine the optical rotatory power. The main advantage of the method is that it computes accurately the polarization in case of arbitrary incident angle. The primary purpose of the model is to calculate accurately the electric fields for the different polarizations in case of acousto-optical cells of various orientations.