A unit of stress optical coefficient, used by physicists studying how light passing through a substance is affected when the substance is put under stress. Symbol, B.
A material has a stress optical coefficient of 1 brewster if one component of a linearly-polarized light beam is retarded by 1 angstrom with respective to the other component, when the light passes through 1 millimeter of material while it is under a stress of 1 bar in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the light beam.
The brewster is named for Sir David Brewster (1781 – 1868).
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Last revised: 19 January 2009.