Abstract

The pioneering work of Tam and Happer¹ on the self-induced planar spatial separation of orthogonal circular polarization components in the transmission of an initially linearly polarized light beam through a sodium cell has recently been complemented by observations of the separation of an elliptically polarized beam into multiple polarized cylindrical structures.^2,3 The basic nonlinear mechanism is known to be the creation of a long-lived orientation in the sodium ground state by the competing polarization components.

© 1994 IEEE