Analysis of the Interaction of Partially Polarized Light with Dielectric Plates

This paper is concerned with a matrix formulation and solution of the interaction of partially polarized light with transparent dielectric plates. Fresnel's equations for transmission and reflection at a dielectric interface are expressed in the form of Mueller-Stokes matrices. These matrices are then applied to (1) transmission and reflection of a light beam by m parallel dielectric plates and (2) multiple reflections within a dielectric plate. It is shown that a diagonalized representation of the Mueller-Stokes polarizing matrix greatly facilitates the calculations.