I. FARADAY EFFECT
The Faraday magneto-optical effect is a rotation of the
polarization plane of linearly polarized light propagating in a
medium along the magnetic field. This rotation occurs due to
the different phase velocities of two circular polarized
waves. Therefore, at the output of a magneto-optically active
medium in our case, water, these two components of circular
polarization accumulate different phases, resulting in the
rotation of the linear polarization plane by an angle . The
rotation angle measured in degrees can be calculated as
=VBdl, where V deg/G cm is the medium Verdet
constant, B G is the magnetic field component parallel to
the laser beam propagation, and l cm is the probing path
length.5 The Verdet constant for distilled water at a temperature
of 20 °C for a wavelength of 532 nm is 2.8
10−4 deg/G cm.
6 This value is 104 times larger than
for air, and it allows one to take measurements of a moderate
magnetic field even for paths of several centimeters. In th