A microscope has a turret of four ideal linear polarising filters with transmission…
PHYSICS · Multi-part · Fermi University Physics · Optics & Photonics · Polarisation and anisotropic media · Polarisation and anisotropic media
Optics and Photonics, Ch Polarisation states, polarisers and the Jones and Stokes calculus
Problem
A microscope has a turret of four ideal linear polarising filters with transmission axes at 0, 20, 40 and 60 degrees (equal steps of 20 degrees), and unpolarised light of irradiance I0 enters from the 0-degree end.
((a)) Find the transmitted irradiance as a fraction of I0.
((b)) If the same 60-degree total rotation were instead spread over a very large number N of equally spaced sheets, state and briefly justify what the transmitted fraction tends to.