Polarization

Polarization or polarisation may refer to:

In the physical sciences

Polarization (waves), the ability of waves to oscillate in more than one direction, in particular polarization of light, responsible for example for the glare-reducing effect of polarized sunglasses
- Polarization (antenna), the state of polarization (in the above sense) of electromagnetic waves transmitted by or received by a radio antenna
Dielectric polarization, charge separation in insulating materials:
- Polarization density, volume dielectric polarization
- Dipolar polarization, orientation of permanent dipoles
- Ionic polarization, displacement of ions in a crystal
- Maxwell–Wagner–Sillars polarization, slow long-distance charge separation in dielectric spectroscopy on inhomogeneous soft matter
Polarization (electrochemistry), a change in the equilibrium potential of an electrochemical reaction
Concentration polarization, the shift of the electrochemical potential difference across an electrochemical cell from its equilibrium value
Spin polarization, the degree by which the spin of elementary particles is aligned to a given direction
Polarizability, an electrical property of atoms or molecules and a separate magnetic property of subatomic particles
- Polarization function, a feature of some molecular modelling methods
Photon polarization, the mathematical link between wave polarization and spin polarization
Vacuum polarization, a process in which a background electromagnetic field produces virtual electron-positron pairs

Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds
Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by adjoining more variables
Polarization identity, expresses an inner product in terms of its associated norm

Polarization (economics), an economic process where middle-class jobs disappear more than those at the bottom and the top
Polarization (psychology), the process whereby a social or political group is divided into opposing sub-groups
Political polarization, the process by which the public opinion divides and goes to the extremes
Social polarization
- Attitude polarization
- Group polarization
- Racial polarization, the process whereby a population with varyingly diverse ancestry is divided into distinct, homogenous racial groups

Polarization (album), an album by American jazz trombonist and composer Julian Priester
Polarization, in many disciplines, is a tendency to be located close to one of the opposite ends of a continuum