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Yes, the device is called a Faraday mirror and it consists of a normal mirror following a Faraday rotator. The latter is a magneto-optical device that rotates the state of polarization of light passing through it in a non-reciprocal manner. The most well-known application of Faraday rotators is to provide optical isolation. The Faraday effect is wavelength ...

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You can uniquely define the polarisation of a plane wave from any of the following: The electric field vector as a function of time $\vec{E}(t)$ and the magnetic field (or induction) $\vec{H}(t)$ (or $\vec{B}(t)$; The wavevector $\vec{k}$ and two scalar functions of time, the latter being the transverse components (in the plane at right angles to ...

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The polarization of an electromagnetic wave follows the direction of the electric field. For example, if the electric component is oscillating along the x-axis and the magnetic field is oscillating in the y-axis, the polarization will be along the x-axis.

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Here are some BICEP2 details to augment Chris White's answer: BICEP2 accomplishes the task of measuring angular variations in polarization by converting those angular variations to a time domain signal. It does so by scanning its telescope across the sky at a constant rate. Specifically, the telescope scans at a fixed rate of $2.8^\circ$/ second in ...

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