Magneto-optical phenomena associated with cyclotron and magnetoplasma oscillations in a homogeneous two-dimensional electron system are theoretically studied. First, the electromagnetic wave (EW) polarization conversion under uniform cyclotron resonance (CR) conditions is discussed. A shift of the polarization conversion resonance with respect to conventional CR is calculated. This shift is more pronounced for a two-dimensional system with high electron density. Particular attention is given to the EW polarization conversion under non-uniform cyclotron and magnetoplasma resonances in two-dimensional electron plasma in the attenuated total reflection (ATR) arrangement. A crossover from magnetoplasma to a non-uniform cyclotron type of resonance, which takes place when the coupling between the ATR prism fields and the two-dimensional electron system grows, is studied. At any coupling strength, the polarization conversion at the resonance reaches 100% if the electron scattering in the two-dimensional system is neglected. The conclusion is drawn that the regime of non-uniform CR is more profitable from a practical point of view since the actual electron scattering in a two-dimensional system does not greatly deteriorate a high polarization conversion at resonance. The studied phenomena can be observed on gallium arsenide heterostructures at terahertz.

This paper was presented at the 3rd Russian Workshop on Nanophotonics, Nizhnii Novgorod, Russia, 26-29 March 2001.