Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jlokier 2153 days ago
> Where goes the energy of the orthogonal component of the field? Absorbed by the polarizer, reflected, ... ?

It depends on the type of polariser.

The type used in LCD displays and 3D cinema glasses absorbs, that's why everything looks darker through them but they don't look like mirrors.

A polarising beam splitter reflects one mode and passes the other. It looks like a half-mirror.