Circularly polarized waves

On this page, the animations presenting the two types of circularly polarized light are shown together so that you can compare them more easily.

3D animation 3D animation

When the intersecting planes are looked at from the front then the following images are seen:

2D animation 2D animation

(Attention! The two animations are not synchronized!)

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se, rather than clockwise, when looked at from the direction of propagation. If you compare the spiral line representing the wave with the spiral line on the previous page, you will observe that one of them is a left-handed spiral and the other one is a right-handed one.

Based on this, we can distinguish right and left circularly polarized lights.

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re shows, a circularly polarized wave can be visualized with a spiral line; the wave propagates as a function describing a spiral instead of one describing a sinus curve.

In this picture, the electric field vector rotates clockwise when looked at from the direction of propagation.

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e difference