privileged direction

[′priv·ə·lijd də′rek·shən]

(optics)

One of two mutually perpendicular directions for the plane of polarization of a beam of plane-polarized light falling on a plate of anisotropic material such that the light which emerges from the plate is also plane-polarized.

References in periodicals archive ?

Because of the high shear stress, the peak of the crack can split, going in a privileged direction parallel to the lamina plan.

Mechanisms of energy absorption and yielding of composite structures

In this volume, Grandis (mathematics, University of Genoa) explores the new field of directed algebraic topology, which is distinguished from classical algebraic topology by the principle that directed spaces have privileged directions and directed paths in these spaces need not be reversible.