Dictionary of Electrical Engineering

Commonly used terms in the Electrical industry.

Faraday rotation
(1) rotation in the direction of polarization experienced by a wave traveling through an anisotropic medium. Important examples of media in which the phenomenon occurs include the earth's ionosphere and ferrites biased by a static magnetic field.

(2) depolarization caused in a plasma (e.g., the ionosphere) resulting from interaction between the ions of the plasma and the magnetic field of the wave.

(3) rotation in the polarization vector experienced by a wave after it propagates through a gyromagnetic medium.
Faraday rotator a magneto-optical device that changes the orientation plane of polarized light when it passes parallel to a
magnetic field through a substance with pronounced absorption lines.