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How are personal energy fields like Iron Halos or Refractor Fields typically depicted in background?

A couple examples I can recall:

In Gaunt's Ghosts, Gaunt fights an enemy leader who has a Refractor Field. If I recall correctly, the enemy was completely immune to weapons fire, then his field collapsed or burst when Gaunt attacked him with his power sword. I remember it had a distinct description of the field failing; 'burst like a balloon', 'peeled open like an onion', 'popped like a bubble'. Something like that. His attack penetrated the field and effectively destroyed it or turned it off.

I once read a Ravenwing comic in Warhammer Monthly where the protagonist bike squadron attacked an Ork Gargant and the first bike to make contact shattered against the Gargant's energy field killing the rider. The rest of the squadron passed through the energy field by stopping and letting the field pass over them, then they ride on and attack the Gargant with krak grenades from below.

In the Astartes animation the enemy psykers have a protective field, presumably psychic in origin, that makes them completely impervious to dozens or hundreds of bolter rounds hitting them, and at least two plasma pistol hits which seem to jolt and distract the psykers. One Marine gets close but is telekinetically frozen in place but manages to push his bolt pistol inside the radius of the field and shoot the psyker. The other psyker comes to his aid and freezes the Marine, then the psyker is attacked from behind and defends himself but his field provides no resistance to a Marine stabbing him.
I say the field appears to be psychic because they stand still and concentrate to maintain the field. But, the way the field acts; seemingly impervious, offering no resistance to melee attacks - is a lot like a 2nd edition Power Field.

Any other depictions you have seen?

The 2nd ed wargear had descriptions.

Although they've stopped using the names, I'm pretty sure that all imperial fields are either refractor based, or conversion based.

The powerfield only survived on the eldar war walker and ork gargants.

So the iron halo/rosarius is a conversion field, which converts incoming energy to light and creates a sphere of light from an impact. In 2nd ed it would count as a blind grenade when it succeeded in saving.

Guard use refractor fields which refract the energy of a shot around the user.

Power fields use brute force to stop an incoming attack, having it impact and invisible wall of energy.

All the new fields post 2nd ed rarely had that kind of background written about them. Eldar force shields, shattershields and shimmershields all seem to do similar things, which is scatter the incoming shot.

For anyone not in their 40s, this is how 2nd edition described energy fields and shields.

Refractor Field
A refractor field is an energy field projected by a small generator no larger than a pistol holster. It operates by dispersing the energy of incoming shots and blows over the total area of the field, One unfortunate side effect is that when the field is switched on it produces a hazy band of light around the subject which makes it impossible for the wearer to hide.
Rules: 5+ inmodified save, bearer cannot hide.

Conversion field
A conversion field converts incoming energy from shooting and close combat hits into light, giving the bearer an additional saving throw of 4, 5 or 6 on a D6.
Rules: 4+ unmodified save, plus every successful save causes models within a radius equal to the strength of the attack to get hit by a Photon Flash Grenade.

Rosarius
A Rosarius is a gorget or amulet worn by Space Marine Chaplains. It bears the symbol of an Imperial eagle or a Terminator cross and is the Chaplain's "soul armour" bestowed upon him by the Ecclesiarchy of Terra. To protect the Chaplain's physical and spiritual well-being the Rosarius contains a conversion field generator which operates according to the rules given above.

Displacer Field
A displacer field is in fact a miniature warp drive mechanism with a proximity detector which picks up incoming shots, psychic attacks or close combat blows.
Rules: 3+ unmodified save which if successful moves the wearer D6" in a random direction. Errata'd to specify the displacer move takes place once, after all hits are resolved. Specified to not work against a vortex grenade.

Power Field
A power field is an invisible bubble of pure energy created by a large, cumbersom generator. Power fields work by deflecting and absorbing the energy of shots. As soon as the 'skin' of the field is broken it increases its energy potential at micro-second intervals to push out into its normal spherical shape again. To save energy and permit the wearer to fire the field flickers on and off in a rapid cycle. Personal power field generators are barely man-portable and are normally only used in siege work and space ship bording actions. Very large power fields are sometimes used to protect Ork Gargants, installations, space ships and other objects with a big enough power source to energise the generator.
Rules: 2+ unmodified save against shooting, no effect in close combat, -1 WS/close combat resolution penalty for being encumbered.

Storm Shield
A storm shield is a large plasteel plate which contains a small but potent power field generator, and because of this they are also known as power shields. Once activated the storm shield is surrounded by a glowing blue field of energy which emits crackling lightning when it is used to parry blows.
Rules: 4+ unmodified save against shooting and close combat hits from the model's front.

Suppression Shield
The suppression shield is similar to a storm shield but replaces the power field generator with an electro-shock unit. The electro-shock unit builds up a powerful electrical charge which is discharged into the first unfortunate individual the shield contacts squarely. Suppression shields are designed for crowd suppression and riot control so the electrical discharge is more debilitating than fatal but it is still distracting to even the most hardened hand-to-hand combat opponent.
Rules: +2 bonus to armour save against shooting or (weird that the wording is 'or' not 'and') close combat, automatically inflict a S3 hit on first close combat opponent when charging.
With those rules I'd prefer to have a Suppression Shield over a Storm Shield a lot of the time.

I am mostly interested in hearing how they are described/depicted in 40K fiction.

Oktoglokk wrote:
I say the field appears to be psychic because they stand still and concentrate to maintain the field. But, the way the field acts; seemingly impervious, offering no resistance to melee attacks - is a lot like a 2nd edition Power Field.

It's similar in effect to psychic protection 'kine-shields' - telekinetically grabbing/blocking smaller objects but more limited when it comes to larger objects (i.e. a marine) and bleed through of things like heat and sometimes energy attacks.

Most technological shields have various fail conditions, usually burning out when over-exerted (i.e. a refractor field only able to 'hold' so much energy across the bubble at any given time). Some older power-field generators were noted to shrink when struck in order to maintain the integrity of the barrier and then push back out to full size.

Well, we’ve a clear idea of how a Void Shield works, perhaps we can extrapolate?

Essentially, the Shield of a Void Shield can’t be overcome as such. Instead, you force each shield in turn to draw so much energy, shunting the force of your blows (all forces, too!) into the Warp, that its generator trips.

The failsafes on the Generators can be bypassed to significantly increase the strength of the shield, but if the enemy really hammers it, the Generator can blow

It seems entirely possible the same applies personal fields, with the shield temporarily collapsing when its generator is overtaxed.

Two more examples, both from Space Marine 2.

A chaos sorcerer is levitating with a protective field in a large bubble around him. He is immune to bolter fire, after 5-10 shot the marines stop trying to shoot him. One marine throws a grenade at him and he makes the effort to deflect it away before it explodes. His field seems to be connected to an altar/obelisk beneath him and when it teleports away he is vulnerable, a single bolter round scoring a large gouge on his left pauldron. The space marines are under the effect of sorcery making them slow-witted and they spend a second or two with their super-human reflexes suppressed not capitlalising on his vulnerability before he throws exploding energy balls at them. He then appears to re-erect his protective field.

Marneus Calgar has an Iron Halo, strangely he never gets hit by any weapons fire, nor does any enemy get close enough to hit him with a sword.
A greater demon of Tzeench casts a spell that washes over the space marines and freezes them, along with the Tzaangor they were fighting. Calgar is unaffected and can move and attack, though it appears it takes him effort to break free and get moving. This seems unrelated to his Iron Halo, the visual effects of the spell contour around him as it does everything else hit.
Later, the 20 metre tall greater demon of Tzeench is breathing a jet of pink flame at Calgar, hitting him with the full continuous torrent at close range and the flame wraps around him in a distinct bubble and he is completely unharmed.

There's an example of a displacer field in use in the first Ciaphas Cain book, where Amberley has it - the moments where it activates proving quite relevant to the plot.

If memory serves, she also explains it’s temperamental?

I'd need to reread to make sure, Doc, but I think you're right - not sure at which point she mentions it, though. Might even be a footnote.