Yoshisada HAYAMIZU

Hayamizu Optical Design Laboratory, 1019-235 Nishiterakata-machi, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0153, Japan

(Received September 6, 2005; Accepted July 4, 2006)

Internal or external conical refractions are strange optical phenomena appearing in biaxial crystal. In this paper the analysis of internal conical refraction is derived using the ray tracing formulas for the biaxial crystals, after explaining the theory of the ray tracing for the biaxial or uniaxial crystals. The double rings of conical refraction are also investigated; these are affected by the polarization state or angular intensity distributions of the incident light beam causing conical refraction.

Key words: conical refraction, internal conical refraction, biaxial crystal, uniaxial crystal, ray trace, ray trace of biaxial crystal, ray trace of uniaxial crystal