Phase-polarization characteristics of radiation reflected from a planar waveguide

Theoretical and experimental investigations were made of the transformation of the phase-polarization characteristics of radiation on reflection from a planar waveguide. When the conditions for the excitation of the guided TE and TM modes were different, a phase shift appeared between the s and p components of the reflected radiation and this shift showed a sharp resonance in its dependence on the angle of incidence. This effect was observed experimentally for waveguides with different degrees of overlap of the angular distributions of the TE and TM modes. A resonant variation of the phase shift from zero to 2π was observed.