In this issue: Discover the uses of polarization in spectroscopy.

To those with an interest in photography, polarization will be familiar as a method for eliminating specular reflections from the surface of water or glass, bringing out subsurface details in stunning clarity. However, in industrial applications polarization is often neglected.

Polarized light is useful because it enables selective measurement of samples that either alter the polarization state of the incident beam, or preferentially absorb one polarization of light over another; the former is the basis of ellipsometry and polarimetry techniques (among others), the latter is the basis of many infrared spectroscopic measurements with polarized light.