A new method to demonstrate and measure birefringence

The polarization properties of the light scattered in the bulk of an anisotropic solid are used to measure circular and linear birefringence. Recently, the extension of the method to scattering at an air-solid interface has increased the precision significantly and the range of measurement by three orders of magnitude. Moreover, the brightness handicap of Rayleigh scattering is surmounted by designing the roughness of the scattering surface adequately and by using an analyser in the scattered beam.