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Physics Lesson 12.6.5 - Types of Polarizers
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Welcome to our Physics lesson on Types of Polarizers, this is the fifth lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Polarization of Light, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
Types of Polarizers
Polarizers are tools used to provide a specific polarization of light. There are three types of polarizers available: reflective, dichroic and birefringent.
Reflective Polarizers
Reflective polarizers provide polarization of the desired light while reflecting (blocking) the rest. Wire grid polarizers are an example of reflective polarizers. In wire grid polarizers, only the light whose electric vector is in the direction of grid lines is allowed to pass through while the light, whose electric vector is perpendicular to those grids, is blocked. Look at the figure in which a wire grid polarizer with four different directions of grid lines is shown.
Dichroic Polarizers
Dichroic polarizers absorb a specific polarization of light, transmitting the rest. Modern nanoparticle polarizers are examples of dichroic polarizers. The figure below shows a dichroic polarizer.
Most high quality polarized sunglasses in use today have dichroic polarized glasses. This is why only the incidence light is allowed to pass through them, not the reflected one.
Birefringent Polarizers
Birefringent polarizers operating principle is based on the refractive index of light. Given that different polarizations diffract at different angles, this property is used to choose specific polarizations of light.
Microscopy uses birefringent polarization, as it is very sensible to slight changes of light intensity caused by the elimination of a certain number of electric vectors depending on the situation.
You have reached the end of Physics lesson 12.6.5 Types of Polarizers. There are 6 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Polarization of Light, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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