The polarization of light and the Malus' law using smartphones
Physics Education
2017-05-24 v2 Popular Physics
Abstract
Originally an empirical law, nowadays Malus' law is seen as a key experiment to demonstrate the transverse nature of electromagnetic waves, as well as the intrinsic connection between optics and electromagnetism. In this work, a simple and inexpensive setup is proposed to quantitatively verify the nature of polarized light. A flat computer screen serves as a source of linear polarized light and a smartphone (possessing ambient light and orientation sensors) is used, thanks to its built-in sensors, to experiment with polarized light and verify the Malus' law.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1607.02659,
title = {The polarization of light and the Malus' law using smartphones},
author = {Martín Monteiro and Cecilia Stari and Cecilia Cabeza and Arturo C. Marti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.02659},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures, in this version the manuscript has been reorganized and several typos have been corrected