John Kerr
(Ardrossan, UK, 1824-Glasgow, id., 1907) British physicist.He studied at the University of Glasgow under the supervision of Lord Kelvin.He investigated the behavior of light rays in a transparent medium (particularly liquids and cubic crystals) to which an intense electric field is applied transversely.Kerr observed that said medium became birefringent, that is, that the light is resolved into two components (one parallel and the other perpendicular to the field), so that the light beam emerges from the circularly polarized medium, since the two components propagate at different speeds and therefore in different phases.This electro-optic effect, called the Kerr effect, has found important applications in the study of lasers and communications.
Comments
Post a Comment