Hanle effect

The Hanle effect is a reduction in the polarisaton of light when the atoms emitting the light are subject to a magnetic field in a particular direction, and when they have themselves been excited by polarised light.

It is named after Wilhelm Hanle, who first described it in Zeitschrift fur Physik in 1924. Attempts to understand the phenomenon were important in the subsequent development of quantum physics.[1]

Applications

References

  1. ^ [1]