A study on transmitted intensity of disturbance for air-spaced Glan-type polarizing prisms

Abstract

We study theoretically and experimentally the transmission intensity of polarized light through the air-spaced Glan-type polarizing prsims. It is found that the variation of the transmitted intensity with the rotation angle deviates from Malus Law, exhibiting a cyclic fluctuation with the rotation angle. The occurrence of the disturbance is explained by the use of an argument based on the interference effect produced from the air-gap in the prisms. The theoretcal results are well agreed with the experimental ones. By selecting the proper cut angle of prism and reducing the thickness of air-gap in prism, the disturbance may be minimized.

Microscopic imaging ellipsometry of submicron-scale bacterial cells

“…The light source is generated from a Fianium WhiteLase short wavelength supercontinuum laser with power >300 mW and wavelength from 400nm to 1000 nm [21]. The light beam then guided into a low-loss fiber connected to the laser arm of the system where a polarizer (Glan-Thompson Polarizing Prism, Germany) [22], is fixed at 45º. A rotating compensator is added to the laser arm and monitored by a goniometer.…”

A novel design for Glan-Taylor prism without interference effect

“…These fluctuations will decrease the precision of measurements, especially on conditions that the GTP needs to be rotated in experiments [3,4] . How to eliminate the interference in GTP and improve its transmittance has attracted much attention in the past years.…”

“…(3) predicts that the transmission of the air-gap will reach minimum value of (1-R) 2 /(1+R) 2 when =n , where n is odd number [6,7] . In application, when incident ray is not normal incident on the GTP, the multiple-beam fringes of equal inclination from two plane-parallel surfaces will occur [3] .And when a small wedge angle of air film is formed by two long faces of GTP, the fringes of equal thickness will occur in output beam [4] . For the present, there are two ways to reduce GTP's interference.…”

“…One way is to coat anti-reflective films on its two long faces at the expense of anti-beam damage threshold value-which is one important character of GTP. The other way is to adjust air-gap's thickness to proper value [4] . However, this way is difficult to practise for the very thin air-gap [8] .…”

“…In addition, the new prism also has other advantages, such as high transmittance, high optical damage threshold and avoiding the adjustment of air-gap's thickness [4] . A desirable NGTP with a small deviation angle can be obtained through choosing the appropriate structure angles and the incident wavelength.…”