Method and apparatus for optical isolation

摘要

A Faraday isolator (20) and circular polarizer (60) are used in combination to optically isolate specular and diffuse reflections which result when a forward traveling radiation beam (402) encounters an optical or non-optical boundary surface (70). The forward traveling radiation beam is linearly polarized with a linear polarizer (406) such that its plane of linear polarization is aligned with a first polarization axis (36), then the axis of linear polarization is rotated to a second polarization axis (38) with a polarization rotator (32) and finally the linearly polarized forward traveling beam is circularly polarized with a quarter wave retarder (60). $$