title: Relations between the critical angles and the optical tensor of a biaxial material.
abstract: The behavior of the critical angles between a high-index isotropic medium and a biaxial crystal with arbitrary orientation of the optical tensor has been theoretically analyzed and numerically modeled. The results indicate that, as the biaxial crystal is rotated around an axis perpendicular to the interface, two critical angles appear, corresponding to the excitation of two eigen modes, which periodically vary with a period of pi. An optical procedure for fully characterizing the optical tensor of a biaxial crystal is suggested on the basis of the twist-angle dependence of these critical angle. This procedure simply requires the measurement of the p- to s-conversion reflectivity against the sample rotation angle, with just one polished surface of a biaxial crystal.
authors.affiliation: Liquid Crystal Research Centre, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Fuzi
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hongjin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: J Roy
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Sambles