{"term":{"id":"06030","title":"Stokes parameters","longtitle":"IUPAC Gold Book - Stokes parameters","doi":"10.1351\/goldbook.S06030","code":"S06030","status":"current","definitions":[{"id":1,"text":"Of elliptically polarized incident radiation, these are given by \\[s_{0}^{0}=E_{1}^{0}+E_{2}^{0}\\] \\[s_{1}^{0}=E_{1}^{0}- E_{2}^{0}\\] \\[s_{2}^{0}=2\\ \\sqrt{E_{1}^{0}\\ E_{2}^{0}}\\ \\cos   \\delta ^{0}\\] \\[s_{3}^{0}=2\\ \\sqrt{E_{1}^{0}\\ E_{2}^{0}}\\ \\sin   \\delta ^{0}\\] where \\(E_{1}^{0}\\) and \\(E_{2}^{0}\\) specify the irradiances of the incident light polarized with their electric vectors vibrating perpendicular and parallel to the scattering, respectively and \\(\\delta ^{0}\\) is the phase difference between these electric vectors.","links":[{"term":"irradiances","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/I03254"},{"term":"radiation","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/R05048"},{"term":"scattering","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/S05493"},{"term":"scattering matrix","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/S05492"}],"sources":["PAC, 1983, 55, 931. 'Definitions, terminology and symbols in colloid and surface chemistry. Part 1.14: Light scattering (Provisional)' on page 933 (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1351\/pac198355060931)"]}],"altoutputs":{"html":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/S06030\/html","xml":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/S06030\/xml","plain":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/S06030\/plain"},"citation":"Citation: 'Stokes parameters' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351\/goldbook.S06030","license":"The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/) for individual terms.","collection":"If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .","disclaimer":"The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.","accessed":"2026-04-18T18:00:17+00:00"}}