Coursework.Info - Inspiration in an Instant

On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:

Polarisation - what is it and what is it used for? Natural sunlight (and most other forms of illumination) transmits light waves whose electric field vectors vibrate in all different planes relating to the direction of transmission. When these electric fields are restricted to a single plane by filtration, the light is said to be polarised as all of the light waves are vibrating in the same plane. When unpolarised light is passed through a Polaroid filter, it emerges with only half the intensity of before, and with all waves travelling in the same plane. This light is now polarised. As unpolarised light strikes the filter, the quantity of waves vibrating in a certain direction are absorbed by the filter. By eye it cannot be seen which direction has been absorbed, but the general rule is that 'the electromagnetic vibrations which are in a direction parallel to the alignment of the molecules...

To see the full version of this document, and 144,846 others