Re: polarizing microscope for the refractive index calculation

in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Steve Eckhardt at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote on 12/2/03 9:35 AM:

> Perhaps some terminology can help here.  Materials are isotropic, uniaxial or
> biaxial.  In the first of these, there is only one refractive index for the
> material, no matter which way you look at it.  In the second case, there are
> two refractive indices, one in a certain direction (the axis) and a second in
> any direction perpendicular to the first.  Biaxial materials have three
> refractive indices, Nx, Ny & Nz.

The real problem is that one has to have some understanding of the index
ellipsoid for these terms to be really meaningful.

Bill