Circular polarized light is photons in helicity eigenstates. I think the left vs. right is a bit confusing, but that is just convention. A photon in the spin state:

Elliptical polarizationof light

In waveguides it is more complex. It is assumed that both the magnetic and the electric field components can be aligned and that they can be aligned at an angle other than 90°.

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Sorry I agree with your colleague. Circular pol light is typically a mix of 2 linear polarizations created by certain crystals/materials, the circular thing is a mathematical construct where we can add 2 vectors and get a phase .... phase can be interpreted in angular/radial dimensions.

Circularpolarization

And there is the phenomenon that the radiation receives a twist when it emerges from an optical structure. We then observe this as circularly polarized light.

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EM radiation can be polarized in the next way. In a polarization plate suitable for a certain frequency range, 50% of the radiation is directed in the polarization direction and 50% is absorbed/reflected. There is therefore an interaction with the electric field component of the radiation and the slits.

Circular polarisation of lightmeaning

In optical crystals, it is the periodic electric and magnetic fields of the crystal structure that polarize and diffract light. Among these, there are crystals that have two optical axes (birefringence, polarization planes, ...)

In addition to my2cts answer showing how circularly polarized light is detected, I would like to add the reason for this phenomenon.

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Circular polarisation of lightformula

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Circular polarisation of lightpdf

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I've read that there exist chiral molecules, which modify circularly polarized light, but do not affect linear polarized light. Some sugars, and also some oil-derivatives. But I could not find an explanation of the effect, much less an intuitive one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_polarization Note how in Wikipedia the first 3 references are from the 1800s! Circular light is a long running convention in physics.

Circular polarisation of lightin physics

My line of reasoning is that transversal waves are solutions of the wave equation. As this equation is linear, a linear combination of solutions is also a solution. And in that linear combination, I'm free to use complex coefficients. Hence, circularly polarized light is perfectly possible as an inherent property of light.

Edit My colleague knows the effect of a QWP very well, but, he still thinks that circularly polarized light is a mental construction. More or less like some statistical blah-blah from the newspaper, that one is advised not to trust, unless one really knows what is going on. When I speak of Stokes parameters, he tends to mistrust the thing. I personally find math arguments very helpful to stay on safe ground, but it is also very difficult to communicate that feeling of safety to others. The guy is neither stupid nor obtuse, by any stretch of those concepts. In a way, I find it sane that he asks for arguments.

With two circular and one linear polarisers you can do it. Use an unpolarised light source. First show that half the light passes the two circular polarisers when aligned and none passes when they are anti-aligned. So there is polarisation. Then replace the second filter by the linear filter and show its orientation does not matter. So the polarisation is not linear.

At work, a senior colleague thinks that circularly polarized light does not exist. My problem is that we both work on a project involving polarized light. In some occasions, I would like to point out some artifacts that I can identify in the circularly polarized component (because I am computing the Stokes parameter that describes exactly that). My colleague insists to dismiss those arguments of mine on the basis that circularly polarized light does not exist. Instead, he argues, I should measure linear polarized states, and reason from there.

Now it turns out that my colleague is not particularly well versed in math, so my line of reasoning does not fly a single nanometer. Besides, it would be advantageous to me if I can also get someone else on my side, specially on the management floor, and math is certainly not the way.