Electro-optical effect
The electro-optical effect describes the dependence of the refractive index of a medium on an external electric field .
The dependence of the refractive index on the electric field strength can be represented by a Taylor series :
Here, the refractive index of a field in the absence of:
- If it is , one speaks of the linear electro-optical effect or Pockels effect . is then relatively too negligibly small, except for extremely high electric fields.
- If and , one speaks of the quadratic electro-optical effect or Kerr effect .