Figure 1

Illustration of time refraction, time reflection and time Faraday rotation for a linearly polarized light incident upon a time wave plate with time-dependent ME coefficient Θ = βt/μ₁(t₀ < t t1).

At t₀, the wave splits into a time refracted part and a time reflected part. The two parts are both elliptically polarized, but their major axes rotate with time. After the second interface t₁, the polarization axes of the four outgoing waves have angular differences with respect to the polarization of the incident wave.