FIELD: measuring equipment.
SUBSTANCE: invention relates to measuring equipment and pertains to a method for measuring the degree of polarisation of light emission of lightning. The method includes measuring the intensity of the plane-polarised and non-polarised components of emission. The plane-polarised component is therein converted into a circularly polarised one or a spatial distribution of the angle of rotation of the polarisation plane. In the first variant, the light flux is passed through a polarisation rotator, and the light flux is divided into two. One of the fluxes is passed through a polarisation analyser with a concentric distribution of the full transmission axis, and the other flux is passed through a polarisation analyser with a radial distribution of the full transmission axis. The fluxes are directed to a two-channel photodetector. In the second variant, the light flux is passed through a wedge-shaped plate made of an optically active material and through a linear polariser, installed in the image plane whereof is a multi-channel CCD rule-type photodetector. The maximum and minimum values of the signal amplitude are measured. The degree of polarisation is defined as the ratio of the difference between the signals to the sum thereof.
EFFECT: simplification of the method and provided possibility of distinguishing the light emission of lightning from light sources of another type.
3 cl, 2 dwg
