Determination of dielectric tensor fields in weakly inhomogeneous anisotropic media II

Abstract

The physical properties of the light-propagation equations in a weakly inhomogeneous anisotropic medium derived by the authors are investigated with the help of the Poincaré sphere. Three nondestructive methods of determining a dielectric tensor field having nine unknown components at each point are considered theoretically, which approximately evaluate the tensor at each point by recording two-dimensional projected information involved in transmitted or scattered light in the medium. The first two methods use the measurement of the Stokes parameters, and the other utilizes an analysis to determine a stress tensor in three-dimensional photoelasticity.